LIQUID INTELLIGENCETHE ART AND SCIENCE

OF THE PERFECT COCKTAIL

DAVE ARNOLDPHOTOGRAPHY BY TRAVIS HUGGETT

FOR MY WIFE, JENNIFER, AND MY SONS, BOOKER AND DAX

Please bookmark your page before following links.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART 1: PRELIMINARIESMEASUREMENT, UNITS, EQUIPMENT

INGREDIENTS

PART 2: TRADITIONAL COCKTAILSICE, ICE WITH BOOZE, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW

Ice by ItselfIce with BoozeChilling and DilutingThe Fundamental Law of Traditional Cocktails

SHAKEN AND STIRRED, BUILT AND BLENDEDShaken Drinks: The DaiquiriStirred Drinks: Manhattan versus NegroniBuilt Drinks: The Old-FashionedBlended Drinks and Shaved Drinks: The Margarita

COCKTAIL CALCULUS: THE INNER WORKINGS OF RECIPES

PART 3: NEW TECHNIQUES AND IDEASALTERNATIVE CHILLING

NITRO-MUDDLING AND BLENDER-MUDDLING

RED-HOT POKERS

RAPID INFUSIONS, SHIFTING PRESSURERapid Nitrous Infusion with the iSi WhipperRapid Liquors and CocktailsRapid Bitters and TincturesVacuum-Infused Solids: Garnish Magic

CLARIFICATIONDefinition, History, TechniqueClarification Techniques: Nitty-Gritty FlowchartsClarifying Booze in the ’Fuge: The Justino

WASHING

Booze WashingMilk Washing: What’s Old Is What’s NewEgg WashingChitosan/Gellan WashingA Short Word on Fat Washing

CARBONATION

PART 4: LITTLE JOURNEYSAPPLES

COFFEE

THE GIN AND TONICSOURCES

FURTHER READING

RECIPE LIST

INDEX

INTRODUCTIONCocktails are problems in need of solutions. How can I achieve a particular taste,texture, or look? How can I make the drink in front of me better? Taking cocktailsseriously, as with all worthy inquiries, puts you on a lifelong journey. The more youknow, the more questions you raise. The better a practitioner you become, the moreyou see the faults in your technique. Perfection is the goal, but perfection is,mercifully, unattainable. I have spent seven years and thousands of dollars on theproblem of the perfect gin and tonic; I still have work to do. How boring if I werefinished—if I were satisfied. Learning, studying, practicing—and drinking withfriends: that is what this book is about. The premise: no cocktail detail isuninteresting, none unworthy of study.

A little dose of science will do you good. THINK LIKE A SCIENTIST AND YOUWILL MAKE BETTER DRINKS. You don’t need to be a scientist, or evenunderstand much science, to use the scientific method to your advantage. Controlvariables, observe, and test your results; that’s pretty much it. This book shows youhow to make your drinks more consistent, how to make them consistently better, andhow to develop delicious new recipes without taking random shots in the dark.

Sometimes on our journey, in hot pursuit of a particular flavor or idea, I usemethods that are preposterous and equipment that is unattainable for most readers.You’ll see what it means to run an idea into the ground. I also hope you’ll beentertained. I don’t expect most people to tackle these more involved drinks, but you’llget enough information to give them a go if you are willing and able. I’ll hold nothingback and keep no secrets, which means there will be as many mishaps as successes(mistakes are often the origins of my best ideas). Last, I promise that there will beplenty of techniques, flavors, and drink ideas you can use, even if all you have is a setof cocktail shakers and some ice. I’m out to change the way you look at drinks, nomatter what kind of drinks you make.

This is not a book on molecular mixology (a term I detest). The connotations ofmolecular are all bad: gimmicks for gimmicks’ sake, drinks that don’t taste very good,science gone wrong. My guidelines are simple:

• Use new techniques and technologies only when they make the drink tastebetter.• Strive to make an amazing drink with fewer rather than more ingredients.• Don’t expect a guest to know how you made a drink in order to enjoy it.• Gauge success by whether your guest orders another, not by whether he or

she thinks the drink is “interesting.”• Build and follow your palate.

This book is divided into four parts. The first part deals with preliminaries—equipment and ingredients—that pave the way for the rest. The second part is a carefulstudy of how classic cocktails work: the basics of shaker, mixing glass, ice, andliquor. The third part is an overview of newer techniques and ideas and how theyrelate to classic cocktails. The last part is a series of recipes, mini-journeys based ona particular idea. At the end you will find an annotated bibliography of cocktail books,science books, and cookbooks, plus journal articles that I find interesting and germaneto our subject.

WHAT I AM THINKING ABOUT PRETTY MUCH ALL THETIMEI approach cocktails like everything I care about in life: persistently and from theground up. Often I perceive an irksome problem in an existing cocktail, or becomeentranced with an idea or flavor, and my journey begins. I ask myself what I want toachieve, and then I beat down every path to get there. I want to see what is possibleand what I’m capable of. In the initial phases of working through a problem, I don’tmuch care if what I’m doing is reasonable. I prefer to go to absurd lengths to gainminute increments of improvement. I am okay with spending a week preparing a drinkthat’s only marginally better than the one that took me five minutes. I’m interested inthe margins. That’s where I learn about the drink, about myself, and about the world.Sounds grandiose, but I mean it.

I am not unhappy, but I am never satisfied. There’s always a better way.Constantly questioning yourself—especially your basic tenets and practices—makesyou a better person behind the bar, in front of the stove, or in whatever field youchoose. I love it when my dearly held beliefs are proved wrong. It means I’m aliveand still learning.

I hate compromising, and I hate cutting corners, but sometimes I have to. Youneed to keep hating compromise at every turn while knowing how to compromise withminimum impact when necessary. Always be focused on the critical path to quality,from raw ingredients to the cup. I am often surprised by how much work someone willput into making ingredients for a drink, only to destroy all that work at the last moment.Remember, a drink can be ruined at any stage of its creation. Your responsibility forvigilance as a drink maker doesn’t end until the drink is finished—and yourresponsibility as an alcoholic-drink maker doesn’t end until the imbiber is safe andsound at home.

PART 1

PRELIMINARIES

Measurement, Units, EquipmentHaving access to cool equipment has helped me develop ways of achieving goodresults without the equipment. In this section we’ll look at the equipment I use at homeand at my bar, Booker and Dax. Almost no one—not even well-heeled professionalbartenders—will want or need all the equipment on this list. In the technique-basedsections of the book I’ll give you workarounds for the bigger-ticket and hard-to-finditems as often as I can. At the end of this section you’ll find shopping lists organizedby budget and interest.

A note on measurement, before we launch into a discussion of tools.

HOW AND WHY YOU SHOULD MEASURE DRINKSDrinks should be measured by volume. I am a big believer in cooking by weight, but Imix drinks by volume, and so should you. Pouring out small volumes is much fasterthan weighing a bunch of small ingredients. Furthermore, the densities of cocktailingredients vary wildly, from about .94 grams per millileter for straight booze to 1.33grams per millileter for maple syrup. For the bartender, the weight of the finishedbeverage isn’t important, but the volume is. The volume determines how close the topof the finished drink will be to the rim of the glass. This liquid line is called the washline, and maintaining a proper wash line is essential to good bartending. In aprofessional setting, it is essential that your drinks be consistent. Having standardwash lines for each drink you prepare gives you an instant visual check that everythingis okay. If your wash line is wrong, something is wrong with the drink. Consistentwash lines are also important to your guests’ well-being. Two people get the samedrink, but one drink sits higher in the glass: do you like the person with the taller pourmore, or are your techniques just a bit shaky?

Advocates of the free-pour don’t measure their drinks with measuring tools.Some free-pourers gauge how much they have poured by looking at the liquid levelson the side of glass mixing cups. These bartenders recognize through practice whatliquid increments look like in a standard mixing glass. Other free-pourers use speed-pour bottle tops, which produce a steady stream of liquor. Speed-pour mavens judgehow much they pour by counting off the length of time they pour: so many countsequals so many ounces. These bartenders practice for hours and hours to attain aconsistent counting technique.

Why do free-pourers eschew measuring cups? There are four main schools ofthought: the Lazy, the Speedy, the Artist, and the Monk. The Lazy just don’t care if theyare accurate; enough said about them. The Speedy believe that free-pouring is accurateenough and saves valuable time behind the bar—a couple seconds saved on each drink

adds up to a lot of time when customers are six deep at a busy bar. The Lazy and theSpeedy free-pourers won’t achieve accurate and repeatable results. Free-pourtechniques are particularly inappropriate for the home bartender, who doesn’t pour outdozens of drinks each night, hasn’t practiced a lot, and should be spending the time toget each drink right. Free-pour Artists believe that measuring cups make them lookunskilled, unpracticed, and lacking in finesse. I disagree. Masterful jigger-work is apleasure to behold, and being accurate doesn’t make you robotic. No free-pourer canbe as consistent over as many different drinks in as many different conditions assomeone who measures. The most intriguing argument in favor of free-pouring comesfrom the Monk, who believes that drinks should not be constrained to easilyremembered recipes given in quarter-ounce increments. After all, why should webelieve that exact quarter-ounce increments provide the ideal proportions for a drink?Monks pour by feel, tasting as they go, establishing the correct proportions for eachdrink individually by intuition and by how they size up their guests’ tastes.

The “wash line,” where I’m pointing, is where the top of a drink hits on the glass.

I like free-pour Monks, but in daily practice it is much better to have a standardrecipe that you can remember and consistently follow than to worry about theconstraints of the measuring system. Fixed recipes can still allow for nuance while

taking advantage of standard measuring equipment and terms. While it is impossible toremember that a recipe should contain .833 ounces of lime juice (one-third of the waybetween ¾ ounce and 1 ounce), it’s easy to remember “a fat ¾.” Similarly, two-thirdsof the way from ¾ to 1 ounce can be called out as a “short ounce.” Some recipes thatcall out even smaller quantities have smaller but easily remembered increments: weuse the bar spoon, the dash, and the drop. In answer to the Monk’s main premise—thatmeasuring doesn’t guarantee a perfectly balanced drink—the good measuringbartender tastes each and every drink he or she makes. The pros use a drinking strawto extract a small sample of each drink to ensure that the measured proportions haveproduced the required effect.

Notice that in the above discussion my units are in ounces and not in milliliters.American cocktail recipes are always written in ounces. Before my metric friends getin a tizzy, let me say that in a cocktail recipe the word ounces is really just anotherway to say “parts.” Cocktail recipes are all about ratios, and ratio measurements arein parts: 2 parts booze plus ½ part syrup and ¾ part juice and the like. In this book, 1part equals 1 ounce equals 30 milliliters. The size of an actual “ounce” depends onwhom you ask. Even without considering the various now-obsolete internationalounce definitions, the United States by itself has a bewildering array of differentlysized “ounces” that all hover around 1 fluid ounce equaling 30 milliliters. It turns outthat the 30 milliliter ounce is an extremely convenient part size for making cocktails.So when I am making individual drinks, I usually speak in ounces. When I’m makinglarge batches, I use a calculator or spreadsheet to convert my ounce-based recipes toany size I need, and I calculate in milliliters at 30 milliliters to the ounce.

Remember! In this book, 1 ounce of liquid equals 30 milliliters.

IMPORTANT: UNITS IN THIS BOOKIn this book I always equate 1 ounce with 30 milliliters. My jiggers are sized this way as well. If you have ajigger set that uses a different-sized “ounce,” your measurements will be consistently slightly different frommine—not usually a problem. Here’s my decoder ring:

• Volume is (fluid) ounces , milliliters (ml), and liters (l); but in this book, a fluid ounce is 30 milliliters.Some bar-specific volume measurements in this book:

• 1 bar spoon = 4 milliliters, a bit more than 1/8 ounce

• 1 dash = 0.8 milliliters, or 36 dashes to the ounce

• 1 drop = .05 milliliters, or 20 drops to the milliliter and 600 drops to the ounce

• Weight is always in grams (g) and kilograms (kg), not ounces and pounds. The persnickety will note that,unlike the ounce, the gram isn’t a unit of weight; it is a unit of mass. Weight is a measure of force. Force, notmass, is actually what a scale weighs. The unit of mass in imperial units is the awesomely evocative, seldom-

used slug. Really our metric scales should weigh in newtons (kg x m/s2)—but that’s just dumb.

• Pressure is in psi (pounds per square inch) and bars (atmospheric pressure is roughly 14.5 psi or 1 bar).

• Temperature is in both Celsius (C) and Fahrenheit (F), although for cocktail work I vastly prefer Celsius.Fahrenheit’s proper place is in weather forecasts, baking, and frying.

• Energy and heat are in calories . Sorry, science world, but calories make intuitive sense when you areheating and cooling water a lot of the time. The standard unit, the joule, does not. (One calorie equals 4.2joules.)

EVERYDAY EQUIPMENT FOR MEASURING DRINKSIndividual drinks are usually measured with jiggers. The jigger set I like to useconsists of two vessels, each a double cone. They follow the convention of the 30milliliter “ounce.” The larger of the two jiggers, which I use for measuring anythingbetween 1 and 2 ounces, has a 2-ounce cone with markings inside for 1½ ounces and a1-ounce cone with markings inside for 3/4 ounce. The smaller jigger has a ¾-ouncecone with a ½-ounce internal line and a ½-ounce cone with a ¼-ounce internal line.These two jiggers are all you need for most measurements. If you are measuring to aninternal line in the jigger, pour all the way to the line. If you are measuring to the topof the jigger, pour all the way to the top. People tend to underpour when they aremeasuring a full jigger. Tip: have your jigger over your mixing vessel as you pour toprevent yourself from spilling precious, precious booze.

Three jiggers and a graduated cylinder. Surprisingly, all three jiggers have the same volume. Because it isnarrower, the tall one in back is much more accurate. The jigger in front is more accurate than the one onthe left because its sides are straight near the top. The graduated cylinder is a paragon of accuracy.

Given a choice between tall, skinny jiggers and short, squat jiggers, I alwayschoose the tall. They are far more accurate. A pour that’s a millimeter higher or lower

in a wide jigger constitutes a much larger error than it does in a skinny jigger. Thesame principle applies to the next piece of equipment I recommend you acquire: agraduated cylinder.

Even with a tall, accurate jigger you must pour consistently to the top. The jigger on the left is holding 2ounces (60 ml). The one on the right is short by a full 1/8 ounce (3.75 ml).

FANCIER EQUIPMENT FOR MEASURING DRINKSGraduated cylinders are tall, skinny, straight columns with milliliter volumemeasurements on the sides. They range from tiny 10-milliliter (about ⅓ ounce) guys to4-liter behemoths. Graduates are very accurate. Measuring cups and beakers aresloppy by comparison. I use them for recipe development and for batching largequantities of cocktails accurately. The ones I use most are 50 ml, a little under 2ounces, which is a good jigger replacement for fine-tuning a highly technical recipe oradding very concentrated flavors to large batches; 250 ml, a little more than 8 ounces,which is perfect for mixing up to four cocktails at a time or measuring the smaller-volume ingredients in larger batches; and 1 liter, a little more than 1 quart, for whenI’m batching by the bottle. Clear unbreakable plastic versions are available at modestprices; glass ones cost more.

Most people won’t need one, but I really love my micropipette. Micropipettesallow you to measure a small volume of liquid very quickly and very accurately. Mineis adjustable to measure any liquid amount between 1 ml and 5 ml and is accurate to.01 ml. Using one takes only seconds, and unlike digital scales, micropipettes requireno batteries. We use one every day at Booker and Dax for juice clarification. I also

use it for recipe testing on very concentrated flavors, such as concentrated phosphoricacid or quinine sulfate solution. I use a micropipette to help figure out the properrecipe by adding small, well-defined quantities bit by bit.

This micropipette can measure and dispense any volume between 1.00 ml and 5.00 ml.

EQUIPMENT FOR MAKING DRINKSMIXING CUPS FOR STIRRED DRINKSMixing cups are a reflection of the bartender’s personal style and can have a largeeffect on the finished cocktail. The most traditional mixing cup, a standard pint glass,has many advantages: it is cheap and fairly rugged, you can see through it, and it canbe used for shaking. Many professional bartenders use pint glasses because theyalready have them on hand for serving beer. The main arguments against the pint glassare threefold: (1) they are made of glass (more on that in a minute); (2) they aren’tsupersexy; and (3) they have a rather narrow base, so they’re easy to tip during avigorous stirring bout.

Many fancy alternatives can combat the last two issues. The two most popularare the cut-glass crystal Japanese mixing cup, shaped like a beaker, and large,stemmed mixing glasses, which look a bit like squat, overgrown wineglasses. Many ofmy bartenders at Booker and Dax use the cut-crystal mixing glasses. They look greatand have stable wide bases and useful pour spouts. They are also quite expensive, andonly one careless drop away from the garbage bin.

A third option is a beaker from a scientific supply house, which makes a good, ifgoofy, mixing cup with a wide base and helpful, fairly accurate volume measurementson the side. These measurements are especially handy for the occasional home

bartender, who doesn’t have the time or inclination to learn to equate volume andpour-height-in-the-glass by rote.

Fancy mixing cups are an investment. If you are making drinks in front of guests,nice gear enhances their experience and gives a better overall impression of you as abartender, and can therefore increase the guests’ enjoyment of the drink. If you don’tplan to mix in front of your guests, don’t bother spending the extra cash.

My preferred mixing vessel is affordable and unbreakable: an 18-ounce metalshaker commonly referred to as a tin, even though they are almost all made of stainlesssteel. I favor metal because it has a much lower specific heat than glass. It takes lessenergy to cool or heat a gram of stainless steel than a gram of glass. Most glass mixingcups are thicker, and weigh much more than the average 18-ounce metal tin, so you cansee that glass mixing cups represent a significant thermal mass—one that will affectthe temperature and dilution of your drink. If you were to stir two drinks, one in achilled glass mixing cup and one in a room-temperature glass mixing cup, there wouldbe a noticeable difference between the two. To make sure that your drinks areconsistent (and consistency should be one of your main bar goals), you must eitheralways use chilled mixing glasses, or never use prechilled mixing glasses, or be somekind of savant who can autocorrect between the two. Metal tins require so little energyto cool down or heat up that they have very little effect on your cocktail.

For stirring drinks I prefer the metal tin. The lovely glass vessels have a large thermal mass, which canthrow off your chilling unless you consistently prechill them.

SHAKERS (LEFT TO RIGHT): Three-piece cobbler shaker; Boston shaker with glass on metal; Bostonshaker with metal on metal (my preference); two-piece Parisian shaker.

This Parisian shaker is pretty cool looking, but is not as versatile or inexpensive as a standard set of metalshaking tins. You build your drink in the small, top section, add ice to it, and then tap the larger cup on top.As you shake, the cup will chill, contract, and seal around the top.

The cobbler shaker is good for people with small hands and people who like fancy-looking shakers. Theyare not very versatile and I dislike the integrated strainer.

To break a set of tins, smack the larger tin right where the seam between the two tins starts to turn into agap.

COCKTAIL SHAKERS FOR SHAKEN DRINKSAnyone even remotely interested in cocktails should own a set or two of cocktailshakers. The primary shaker criterion: it must withstand violent agitation withoutspilling liquids all over you and your guests. The two main styles of cocktail shakerare the three-piece and the two-piece. A third style, the Parisian shaker, looks reallycool but is rather rare.

Three-piece shakers, or cobbler shakers, consist of a mixing cup, a top with anintegral strainer, and a tiny cup-shaped cap sealer. You build the drink in the cup, addice, put the sealed top onto the cup, shake, and then remove the top and strain into yourglass through the integral strainer. These shakers come in a wide range of sizes, fromsingle-drink shakers to large, multiliter party shakers. We don’t use three-pieceshakers at Booker and Dax, and I don’t know many professional American bartenderswho favor them. They don’t strain as quickly as a two-piece setup, don’t offer controlover straining (more on that later), are prone to jamming after shaking, and areinfuriatingly incompatible from set to set. You haven’t had fun shaking drinks untilyou’ve had to shake a party’s worth of cocktails with a random batch of nonstandard3-piece shakers. Poorly made three-piece shakers—and most of them are—also tendto leak. On the upside, cobbler shakers, especially the small ones, are easier forbartenders with small hands to manipulate with skill and aplomb. Some bartenderswho follow particular Japanese schools of bar artistry believe that the shape of the

cobbler shaker improves the structure of the ice crystals produced while shaking; Ithink this is hokum. Nearly all professional three-piece shakers are made of metal, butthere are exceptions. A bartender at one of the most renowned bars in Tokyo servedme a cocktail from a neon-pink plastic cobbler shaker. The reason, a student of theJapanese school told me, is that the plastic, being soft, creates fewer and different icecrystals than a metal shaker would. I have yet to test this hypothesis, but I’m skeptical.

Two-piece shakers, or Boston shakers, are the most popular choice forprofessional bartenders in the United States. I use them at home and at work. Theyconsist of two cups, one of which fits inside the other to form a seal. It is difficult tobelieve that a good seal will form the first time you use a Boston shaker—you fullyexpect to spray cocktail all over the room—but believe me, two-piece shakers sealreliably day in and night out. I’ll save the physics for later. Metal-on-glass uses alarge 28-ounce metal tin and a standard U.S. pint glass. You mix your cocktail in theglass part, then put the metal tin over the glass and shake. I don’t like the metal-on-glass setup because the pint glass might break, all that glass has a large thermal mass,and it’s hard to shake a metal-on-glass setup one-handed unless you have orangutanhands. Some people like the mixing glass because it lets them see how much liquidthey have added to the cocktail. I don’t care about this, because I measure mycocktails. I prefer metal-on-metal shakers, specifically the two-piece type known as“a set of tins”—a 28-ounce tin and an 18-ounce tin. The 18-ounce tin is often called a“cheater” tin by the pros because in a pinch it can be used as a strainer. These suckersare indestructible, have a low thermal mass, are fairly easy to handle, and look andsound good while shaking. A set of tins has a large internal volume, so while makingone drink at a time is the norm, making two drinks, even three, in one shaker is nosweat. You build the drink in the smaller tin, add ice to the rim, place the larger tinover the top, tap to initiate the seal, and shake. After shaking, you break (take apart)the tins. Good bartenders break their tins with much flair and an audible commandingcrack that makes my mouth water as if I were one of Pavlov’s dogs. I myself am stillworking toward tin-breaking mastery. This is a skill you will never regret acquiring.

Until fairly recently, two-piece metal-on-metal tins weren’t easy to find asmatched pairs. You needed to scrounge around kitchen and bar supply shops to findtwo tins that worked well together. Now it is easy to find tins that go together, sealwell, and are stiff enough to give a nice break. Poor-quality tins with noodlelikeflexibility are notoriously difficult to break; they just slide back and forth against eachother.

STRAINERSYou need three different strainers for bar work: julep, hawthorn, and tea.

STRAINERS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP): Tea strainer; julep strainer; hawthorn strainer.

Julep Strainer The julep strainer is an oval with rather large holes intendedfor straining stirred drinks. The large holes allow fast straining, and becausethe whole strainer fits inside the mixing cup, the pouring lip of the mixingcup is unobstructed.

Hawthorn Strainer The hawthorn strainer has a spring around its edge thatlets it fit into a metal shaking tin and into many mixing glasses. In general,that spring makes the hawthorn better at straining out unwanted bits, such aschunks of mint and small ice pieces, than a julep strainer. Almost allhawthorn strainer springs, however, are too large to capture everything thatthe caring bartender worries about, so many bartenders use the hawthorn intandem with a fine tea strainer. I use a Cocktail Kingdom hawthorn with avery fine spring that obviates that problem.

Some hawthorn strainers are made so that the flow of cocktail can bebroken into two streams, enabling the bartender to pour two drinks at once,like a barista pouring two espresso shots into different demitasse cups.

Hawthorn strainers are more difficult to use than julep strainersbecause they sit on the outside of the cup and are prone to drips and spills,but in skilled hands they provide much more control than a julep strainer.The bartender uses his or her index finger to slide the strainer up and down,changing the width of the pouring gap between the hawthorn strainer and thecup. This action is called “adjusting the gate.” Pouring with a closed gateholds back ice crystals. Pouring with an open gate allows more ice crystalsto float on top of your drink. I have been a party to many heated arguments

about the merits and demerits of ice crystals on shaken drinks. For manyyears crystals were a strict no-no, a sign of poor craftsmanship. Today thetide has turned, and many people, including me, proudly proclaim their loveof a beautiful, shimmering layer of crunchy crystals. The argument againstthe crystals is that they melt quickly to form unwanted excess dilution at thetop of the drink. I say, Drink faster! Shaken drinks deteriorate immediatelyafter they are shaken. Like cherry blossoms, they are dead before you knowit. They should be made in small portions and consumed quickly.

This new hawthorn strainer has a very tightly wound spring for capturing small ice crystals that would makeit through a standard hawthorn. Why have springs at all instead of mesh? Because the spring conforms tothe shape of your mixing tin.

With practice you can use a hawthorn to pour into two glasses simultaneously. More of a gimmick for slownights than a useful skill—but fun.

Tea Strainer The third strainer you’ll need at the bar is a tea strainer, orany small fine-meshed strainer, to filter large particulates out of your drink.

In the anti-ice-crystal days the bartender would use the tea strainer to insurethat no ice particles entered the drink. At Booker and Dax, we use teastrainers to keep big herb particles out of our nitro-muddled drinks (see thesection on nitro-muddling, here).

BAR SPOONSBar spoons are long, thin spoons that usually have a twisty shaft. Before I knew better,I thought they were dumb and unnecessary. I know now that these spoons make elegantstirring possible, and they make stirring results more repeatable. Nothing looksclumsier than a hamfisted stir. Believe me—I’m not very good at stirring and am oftenstirring next to masters. Great stirring technique appears effortless, and it is efficientand, above all, repeatable. Proper stirring requires precise repeatability. Really greatstir fiends can accurately stir two drinks at a time. Some ninjas can do four. This sortof high stirring artistry cannot be performed with a run-of-the-mill teaspoon. You needa well-designed, well-balanced bar spoon with a shaft that suits your style. In additionto stirring, you can use your bar spoon to measure. The bar spoons I use are 4 ml (alittle more than ⅛ ounce). Measure yours.

Another tip: use your bar spoon to fish the cherry or olive garnish out of thatirritating jar. Don’t use your fingers!

THE TRICK TO STIRRING: simply push the bar spoon back and forth with your lower fingers while the

top of the spoon rotates in the pocket between your thumb and pointer finger. Your hand never swirlsaround. Focus on always pushing the spoon against the inside wall of the glass—if the back of the spoon isin contact with the glass, the spoon will turn when you push.

BAR MATSBar mats are one of those simple, life-changing things that have been completelyoverlooked by the home market. They are cheap and awesome. Made of thousands oftiny, 1/4-inch high rubber nubbins, they capture spills and are nonslip, preventingfurther spills. I don’t care how good a bartender you are, you will spill stuff. Whenyou spill onto a countertop, you look like a slob and your counter becomes slippery.When you spill into a bar mat, it looks like nothing has happened at all. The bar matstays nonslip, no matter what. At the end of a night (or after a particularly bad spill),carefully pick up the mat, dump it into a sink, and rinse it off. Good as new. Bar matsalso make primo drying mats for cups and dishware. Buy a bar mat.

PICTURED ON THE BAR MAT: 1) Bad Ass Muddler (accept no other), 2) a Kuhn-Rikon “Y” peeler (alsoaccept no other— if you don’t like this tool it’s because you aren’t using it properly), 3) dasher tops, 4) eyedropper, and 5) a paring knife.

MISCELLANYIf you are like me, you will acquire a wealth of little bar tools and gimcracks. Most ofthem are of limited use, but some are cool enough to search out.

Muddlers: Get a good muddler to smash ingredients in the bottom of amixing cup. Most muddlers are crap—they don’t have a big enough crushingarea, so they just push ingredients around. One muddler stands out: the BadAss Muddler from Cocktail Kingdom. This large, solid cylinder lives up toits name. My second favorite muddler is a simple, straight-sided rolling pin.If you are going to muddle with liquid nitrogen, avoid cheap plastic orrubberized muddlers; the liquid nitrogen makes them brittle and shatter-

prone (the Bad Ass Muddler is made of plastic but is unaffected by liquidnitrogen).

Misters: Little spray misters are occasionally useful for applying an aromato a glass before pouring. Using one is more accurate and less wasteful thanusing the traditional rinse. Misters are also useful for applying aromatic oilsor other ingredients to the top of a cocktail. I don’t really use the mistingtechnique, but many of my friends do.

Knives: You will want a decent paring knife to keep handy with your barkit. Store it with a knife guard so that it doesn’t get dull when tossed inamong other bar wares. Invest in a small cutting board as well.

Droppers: Get a couple of glass bottles with screw-on eyedroppers. I usethem to dose all kinds of liquids into cocktails in small amounts: saltwater,bitters, etc. If you like fancy-looking things, get some bitters bottles to adddashes bigger than drops but smaller than the contents of bar spoons. Beaware that different dasher tops have different dash sizes. At the bar we usea half-dasher and a full dasher. At home I just save old Tabasco andAngostura bottles, wash off the labels, and refill. I’m a frugal man.

Ice Storage: At the bar, our ice is stored in ice wells: large, insulatedcontainers with integral drains. We use metal scoops or shaking tins to pickup the ice. At home, you’ll need an ice bucket and a scoop or tongs. It’s abad idea to handle ice with your hands in front of guests unless they areclose family. Unfortunately, I have never seen an ice bucket that I like. Theyshould have a drain tap, like a water cooler, and a plastic rack to keep theice from swimming in the meltwater. They should also look good.

Capper: If you are going to make bottled drinks, get yourself a handheldbottle capper. They are cheap and available at any home-brew shop.

EQUIPMENT FOR MEASURING, TESTING, AND MAKINGINGREDIENTSWEIGHT-MEASURING EQUIPMENTEven though drinks should be measured by volume, it’s useful to have scales (two,actually) for advanced bar work. Sugars for simple syrup, for instance, should beweighed. Hydrocolloids and other powdered ingredients should also be weighed.There is no reason to weigh anything in any unit other than the gram, and that is all you

will see in this book. Water is the one liquid ingredient that can be easily convertedfrom volume- to weight-based measurements—1 gram = 1 milliliter (at standardtemperature)—and so I sometimes weigh my water (see the section on CalculatingDilution, here). Get two digital scales: one that can read in tenth-of-a-gram incrementsand one that can read in one-gram increments. For the smaller units, ask for a drugscale. If you just ask for a scale that can read by 1/10 gram, people always make themistake of getting a scale that isn’t accurate enough. If you ask for a drug scale,everyone knows you mean business when it comes to accuracy. Drug scales can bepurchased very inexpensively. If you start playing with hydrocolloids and other newingredients, or need to measure herbs for tinctures and the like, this scale will serveyou well.

You will also want a scale that measures larger weights in 1-gram increments.Get one that will measure at least 5000 grams. You might wonder why you can’t get ascale that has a large capacity and also measures by tenth-of-a-gram increments. Theanswer is you can, if you have a lot of cash and patience—they cost a few thousanddollars and they are slow. Scales that measure large weights have large platforms.Large platforms are affected by wind currents. Even minor wind currents in a kitchencan make a large-platform scale fluctuate by a couple of tenths of a gram. Thus the twoscales.

OTHER ANALYTICAL EQUIPMENT

Refractometers are instruments that measure refractive index, or how muchlight is bent as it enters a transparent substance. Because differentconcentrations of different substances dissolved in water bend light by adifferent and specific amount, refractometers can tell you the concentrationof water-based solutions, such as the percent of sugar in syrups and fruitjuices, alcohol levels in distilled beverages, and salt concentration inbrines. Do you need one at home? Not really. But we use it every day at thebar, because I prize consistency.

Hand-held refractometers like this one are pretty inexpensive. Be sure to get one that works in the range youneed.

Even though refractometers technically measure refractive index, thatisn’t what we care about—we care about how refractive index correlates tothe concentration of whatever we’re interested in: sugar, ethanol, salt,propylene glycol, whatever. So refractometers usually have scales that readin terms of those solutions. You can buy a refractometer for sugar, one forsalt, and so on. The most common scale, and the most useful for the bar, isBrix, which is the measure of sucrose (table sugar) content by weight.Simple syrup with a Brix of 50 contains 50 grams of sugar in every 100-gram sample. That particular ratio is standard 1:1 simple syrup. Our richsimple syrup has a 2:1 sugar-to-water ratio and therefore a Brix of 66. Brixrefractometers are a relatively cheap and easy way to standardize the syrupsthat you use. Want to make sure your honey syrup has the same sugar contentas your simple syrup? Use a refractometer. Want to know how much sugar isin your fruit juice? Refractometer.

If you can spring for it, I recommend that you get yourself an electronicrefractometer that can measure between 0 and 85 Brix. They are fast to use,even in a dark bar, and are accurate over their whole range. Traditionalmanual refractometers, which can be bought inexpensively, work fine. Thetrick with the nonelectronic jobs is making sure the Brix range they measureis sufficient. The most common range is 0–32 Brix, which is fine for anyfruit juice work you do but won’t work for syrups. You can buy a 0–80 or0–90 manual unit, but then it is hard to read accurate numbers, because thescale on a 0–90 is the same size as the scale on a 0–32, making the 0–32

almost three times more accurate. Even so, if your primary use is at the bar,get a 0–80 Brix unit (make sure it is a Brix scale and not an alcohol scale).The other issue with manual refractometers is you need a light source toread them. It sucks trying to hold a flashlight up to the end of a refractometerstuck in your eye behind a dark bar during the press of a busy service. If youare on the fence about buying one, using a Brix refractometer is also helpfuloutside the bar, to standardize recipes for sorbet and the like when you areusing ingredients like fruit with an unknown amount of sugar (theseapplications want a 0–32 Brix unit).

Caveat: it is extremely easy to misuse a refractometer. Brix scalesassume that the only substances in your sample are sugar and water. Formost products, like fruit juices, that assumption is okay because they don’tcontain a lot of salt, ethanol, or other ingredients that dork with refractiveindex. However, using a refractometer to measure liquids that are a mixtureof sugar and ethanol will not work. Both alcohol concentration and sugarconcentration affect refractive index; there is no way to know how much ofeach is present. Anything you measure with a refractometer must beconsidered a mixture of water and one other substance only.

Thermometers will be useful in the imbibing experiments that we willexplore later in this book. Any relatively fast-acting digital thermometer thatcan reliably measure temperatures down to −20° Celsius (−4°F) is fine. Ihave a fancy eight-channel, data-logging, computer-connected, thermocouplethermometer. It’s probably overkill for normal home use, but it’s not veryexpensive, so you may want to try one.

pH meters are rarely useful for cocktail work, but people in the trade oftenask me about them. A pH meter can measure how acidic an ingredient is butcannot predict how sour an ingredient will taste. See the Ingredients section,here, for more detail on this phenomenon.

JUICERS FOR LIMES AND LEMONSJuicing small citrus is important to me. I joke that I don’t respect people who can’tjuice quickly—but I’m not really joking. Forget hand reamers; they suck. Uprightlever-pull citrus presses are good for grapefruits that won’t fit in smaller handpresses, but they are slow. The best small-citrus press is the lowly swing-away handpress.

Many years ago I was taught the secrets of the hand press by my San Franciscobartender friend Ryan Fitzgerald. He is still faster than me, and I hate him for it. First,have all your citrus washed, cut, and in an easy-to-reach pile next to you on the

counter. Right in front of that pile, have a wide bowl to catch the juice. Right next tothe juice bowl, have something to catch the spent citrus. To juice, hold the press openin your weak hand. Quickly grab a citrus half with your strong hand and place it cutface down into the cup of the press. In one forceful and strong motion, use your stronghand to close the press and crush out all the juice in one violent spray into the bowl.Now flick the handle back sharply as your weak hand aims the cup of the press towardthe spent citrus bowl. As the handle flies back and comes to a halt, the jerk that youcreated should pop the spent citrus into the waste container without your touching it.This is very important, because your strong hand should already be reaching for thenext fruit. Done properly, you should be able to achieve juicing speeds in excess of300 ml per minute. The trick to the technique is choosing the right press. Bad pressesare too deep. Deep-cupped presses seem like they’d be good, but what you need forreal speed-juicing is a shallow cup that can properly eject spents. Good action on thehandle is also a must. Finally, the handle of the press should open only about 120degrees; a press that opens all the way to 180 degrees or more is wasting movementand time.

JUICING LIMES LIKE A MACHINE: Set up your station as shown so you can quickly grab fresh limes,with the juice-catcher and the spent-peel-catcher next to each other. 1) Hold the juicer as shown with thelime face-down. 2) Violently smash the hell out of the lime and then 3) immediately throw open and releasethe handle. The force from the handle popping open will eject the spent peel into the waste bin while you arereaching for the next lime and placing it in the juicer. Repeat again and again and again . . .

Why not use an electric juicer, you may ask. My favorite juicer used to be theSunkist-style electric juicer. It is fast. With a two-handed grab-press-toss juicingtechnique, I can easily achieve 800 ml per minute or more. Juice flows from my handslike a mighty river on the Sunkist, with spent lime halves raining matrixlike intotrashcans. The yield is 25 percent higher than with the hand press. The problem? The

juice doesn’t taste as good. In blind taste tests, people universally preferred the juicefrom a hand press over that obtained from the Sunkist, probably because the spinningreamer scrapes bitterness out of the white pith, or albedo, of the fruit. If you persist inusing the Sunkist, do yourself a favor: rip out the goofy strainers. After 3 or 4 quarts ofjuice they clog up and are a pain to clean.

If unlike me, you have infinite money and space, you can use the Zumex automaticjuicer favored by the godfather of juice himself, Don Lee, one of the masterminds ofthe cocktail world. Pour a box of washed but uncut citrus in, juice comes out. I couldstare at that thing all day. Don uses it to make lime and lemon juice for the thousandsof drinks served daily at the cocktail industry’s yearly bacchanalia, Tales of theCocktail, in New Orleans.

No matter how you press your citrus, you should stain it through a fine chinois ortea strainer before use. Large pulpy bits on the side of a cocktail glass look terrible.

JUICERS FOR LARGER CITRUSFor larger citrus fruits such as oranges and grapefruits, the vertical lever-pulled press,OrangeX or equivalent, is the best choice. It makes short work of large fruit. Get aheavy-duty one, because cheap ones break. It will also work on pomegranates.

JUICERS FOR OTHER FRUITS AND VEGETABLESTo juice hard fruits like apples, or veggies like carrots, I use a Champion Juicer. It’s aworkhorse that can take a severe beating and keep on juicing. It once helped merapidly juice six cases of apples in a row without pausing. Its housing got so hot that itboiled the water I tried to cool it with—and kept right on juicing. I threw wet towelsaround the Champion so I could keep working, and it kept working right alongside me,sending steam out of the towels the whole time. I eventually melted the magnets on thesafety interlock (put there so you can’t grate your hand off), but the motor kept onchugging. This baby will juice just about anything except wheatgrass and sugarcane. Itworks great on things you might not expect, like horseradish and ginger.

If I were running a fresh juice business, I’d invest in a Nutrifaster juicer, the onesthat look like chrome spaceships from the 1960s. Nutrifasters are amazing. Theyrequire no operator force to make juice (you have to push pretty hard on a Championto go fast), but they cost ten times more than a Champion and take up twice the space.

BLENDERSI use only Vita-Prep high-speed blenders. They have balls and a very intuitiveinterface: two paddle switches and a knob. Everyone loves the two paddle switchesand a knob. I don’t know anyone who bought a Vita-Prep and regretted it. Vitamix isthe home version of the Vita-Prep—it’s the same basic machine with a better warranty

and a lower price tag. Home folks should go for the Vitamix. If you’re a pro, youshould spring for the Vita-Prep—you’ll void the warranty on the Vitamix if you use itin a professional setting. Though I love them, Vita-Preps aren’t perfect. Their pitcherchokes down toward the blade so thick products spin up and away from the blade,creating an airlock. This forces you to use the plunger that is sold with the unit to keepthe blending going. Guess what always gets lost in a restaurant or bar? The dangplunger. The speed control knob, which I love, is implemented with a cheappotentiometer, which I hate. Over the years the potentiometer goes wonky and causesthe speed of the blender to jump around wildly. It’s funny to get sprayed with thecontents of a blender unexpectedly, right? I do not recommend the BarBoss, the unitthe company makes specifically for bars. It doesn’t have a real speed control, just atimer. Good for a drone making smoothies, bad for everyone else.

The other megablender on the market, the Blendtec, has the power to go toe to toewith the Vita-Prep and has a well-shaped pitcher that doesn’t require a plunger (thelids on the Blendtecs I have used are wretched, however—they leak). You can see theBlendtec in the various “will it blend” videos that pepper the Internet. I cannotrecommend these blenders, however, because their controls are bad for thinkingpeople. Are you a smoothie robot who wants to make consistent smoothies withoutpaying any attention at all? Get a Blendtec. I have pleaded with Blendtec to make aunit with controls built for cooks and bartenders with brains, to no avail.

If you don’t want to shell out hundreds of dollars for a blender, fear not. Cheaperblenders are worthwhile tools and will make most of the recipes in this book, but untilI can find a cheap blender that can suck up a pitcher of liquid nitrogen without chokingor blend a pound of bacon to a beautiful smooth paste, I will never go back.

STRAINERS FOR INGREDIENTSIf you make juices or infusions, you are going to need to strain them. The strainers Iuse, in order from coarsest to finest: china caps—large holes, fast-draining; finechinois—fine mesh, slow; clean muslin cloth (not cheesecloth); and coffee filters.Don’t use a strainer finer than you need, because fine filters take longer. When youneed a superfine strainer, like a coffee filter, strain your product through a coarserstrainer first, or the fine one will choke up immediately. For juices or syrups Itypically put a china cap inside a chinois and pour the juice through both at the sametime, saving myself a step. I then decide if I need the muslin. Only as a last resort do Ibust out the coffee filters, because they take so dang long.

STRAINING IMPLEMENTS FOR YOUR PREP WORK: I use 1) a coarse china cap and 2) a fine chinois,sometimes in combination. These tools are very useful but not necessary—you can also use a standardkitchen strainer. I use 3) coffee filters constantly, but don’t enjoy them because they always clog. When I amstraining a large amount of product I often go through five or six, one after another. A 4) straining bag is auseful intermediate between a kitchen strainer and a coffee filter.

There are very nice, overpriced, straining bags on the market called superbagsthat come in a range of mesh sizes from fine to very, very fine. They are useful as analternative or adjunct to ordinary strainers and filters.

CENTRIFUGESYears ago, when I started telling people to buy a centrifuge, they just laughed. Nowmore and more chefs and bartenders are using them for a very simple reason: theysave time and money. I can use the centrifuge to convert 2.5 kilos of fresh strawberriesinto two liters of clear, pure strawberry juice in 20 minutes flat without adding anyheat. That is a game-changing ability. Centrifuges aren’t really home-friendly—yet.The ones I use are rather large, and can cost quite a bit. Centrifuges use centrifugalforce to separate ingredients based on density. They can spin the pulp out of juices,spin the solids out of nut milks, spin the oil out of nut pastes, and squeeze the fluid out

of almost anything you can blend. The heart of a centrifuge is its rotor, the thing thatspins around. Most rotors are one of two styles: fixed and swinging bucket. Fixedrotors hold sample tubes rigidly and spin them about. Mixtures spun in these tubesform a solid pellet on the bottom side of the tube. Swinging-bucket rotors are whatthey sound like—swinging buckets on the end of spinning arms. The solids in amixture inside a swinging-bucket rotor get smashed onto the bottom of the buckets.

A 3-liter, 4000 g, benchtop, swinging-bucket centrifuge.

Centrifuges vary wildly in capability, cost, and size. The centrifuge I use atBooker and Dax is a 3-liter benchtop centrifuge with a swinging-bucket rotor holdingfour 750 ml buckets. It has a refrigerator to keep my products cool (spinning rotorsgenerate heat from friction, so refrigeration is nice but not necessary) and can producefour thousand times the force of gravity at a speed of 4000 rpm. The one at the barcosts $8000 new, but we bought a refurbished unit for $3000. In my test lab I use anidentical one that I bought on eBay for $200, but I had to fix it up a bit, and it couldbreak again at any moment. The 3-liter benchtop hits the sweet spot for kitchen-friendly centrifuges. Smaller units don’t have the capacity to make them worthwhile.Slower units don’t produce enough force to make them useful in a busy kitchen. Largerunits are bigger, more expensive, and more dangerous without offering results that aremuch better. I have spent years perfecting recipes that work at 4000 g’s or lower sothat you don’t have to go out and buy that 48,000-g model. The largest, fastestcentrifuges produce so much force that if something goes wrong with them, they canrip themselves apart like a bomb.

The buckets for my centrifuge hold 750ml each. Notice the balance they are sitting on. Buckets that sitacross from each other in the centrifuge must weigh the same amount or all hell breaks loose.

You should never buy a used high-speed or superspeed centrifuge unless youknow what you are doing. These units have rotors that must be inspected and retiredafter a certain number of spins, and a used rotor rarely comes with a guarantee of howit has been used or treated. Most rotors are made of aluminum, which experiencesfatigue after spinning, starting, and stopping year in and year out. That fatigue cancause the rotor to crack and then suddenly fly apart without warning. I once had afreestanding spinning rotor centrifuge that was totally unprotected, the SS1 superspeedcentrifuge from Sorvall. Made in the 1950s when it was still okay to kill a lab techevery once and a while, that sucker could do 20,000 g’s and was little more than analuminum rotor mounted on a motor with some legs bolted to it. Spinning that fifty-year-old aluminum rotor was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in a kitchen, which issaying a lot. We called it the dangerfuge and immediately retired it to my bookshelf.Even on slower centrifuges, you should never use a rotor or buckets that are damagedor corroded in any way. An older motor or frame isn’t a safety issue on a centrifuge,but old rotors and buckets are. Consider getting a rotor that is guaranteed safe.

The second safety issue with used centrifuges is you don’t know what’s been inthem. Assume the worst: prions, Ebola, whatever. The swinging-bucket types that I getare more often than not retired from labs doing bloodwork. I bleach the hell out ofthem when they show up, then pressure-sterilize the buckets in a home canning rig,then bleach the whole thing again. I call this procedure bleaching the rabies out.

For ambitious home enthusiasts, there is a worthwhile centrifuge unit selling nowfor under $200. It handles only 120 milliliters (a little over 4 ounces) at a time, andspins at only 1,300 times the force of gravity, but it can give you a realistic picture ofwhat is possible with a centrifuge, weighs only 10 pounds, is the size of a toaster, andis safe.

This tiny centrifuge can be had for under $200. It works. It helps you make the same awesome cocktail stuffas the big one, just in very small quantities.

LIQUID NITROGENI love liquid nitrogen (LN or LN2). Liquid nitrogen is liquefied nitrogen gas, whichmakes up three-quarters of the air we breathe. N2 is in no way toxic. It is a chemical,just like the H2O we drink is a chemical—which isn’t to say you shouldn’t be cautiouswhen you use it. There are safety rules which must be followed at all times.

At −196° Celsius, liquid nitrogen can give you a nasty cold-burn. If you ingest it,the results can be catastrophic. Never serve or allow someone else to serve a drinkthat contains any cryogenic material, ever. Forget serving drinks with clouds of liquidnitrogen vapor emanating from them. While I’m at it, don’t serve drinks with chunks ofdry ice in them either. Ingested cryogens cause permanent damage. A young woman inEngland lost most of her stomach and was put in critical condition because a bartenderthought it would be cool to serve a drink with some LN rolling around on top of it. Itwasn’t. In practice, it is easy to prevent customers from coming into contact with LN.You must always be vigilant.

Liquid nitrogen in the eyes can blind you. You must be extremely careful toprevent situations in which liquid nitrogen might get in someone’s eyes. Never pour itover anyone’s head, for instance. Some people recommend using gloves to handleliquid nitrogen. I don’t. The only time I have been seriously burned with liquidnitrogen was when the cold made my glove so brittle that it cracked and allowed theliquid nitrogen to pour in. I couldn’t shake the glove off fast enough to prevent a burn.You can, however, dip your hand directly into liquid nitrogen without getting frostbite.A layer of nitrogen vapor immediately forms around your hand, and that vaportemporarily protects you from the extreme cold. This phenomenon is called the

Leidenfrost effect. You can observe it if you dump liquid nitrogen on the floor: it willroll around in little beads that skitter across the floor, almost frictionless, protected bya thin layer of nitrogen vapor, as when you throw a drop of water into a pan so hot thatthe water skitters around like a small marble rather than spreading out and boilingaway. Remember, the Leidenfrost effect only helps you if a vapor can form betweenyour hand and the nitrogen. Grab a superchilled metal cup and you are SOL.

When liquid nitrogen hits your hand it instantly vaporizes, forming a protective insulating vapor shield thatprevents you from freezing. This is called the Leidenfrost effect.

More safety: just because liquid nitrogen isn’t toxic doesn’t mean it can’tasphyxiate you. Large amounts of vaporizing nitrogen in a small space can displaceoxygen—the oxygen you need to survive. Perversely, your body doesn’t reactnegatively to oxygen deprivation. The panic you feel when you can’t breathe isn’t fromlack of oxygen, it’s from excess carbon dioxide (CO2) in your blood. Trying to breathin a pure nitrogen environment doesn’t cause an excess of CO2 in your blood, so youfeel great—loopy, in fact. Without extensive training (which some pilots go through),it is very difficult to self-diagnose a lack of oxygen. Breathing in pure nitrogen ismuch, much worse than breathing nothing at all. Your lungs aren’t a one-way systemfor putting oxygen in your blood. They only function properly when the air containsmore oxygen than your blood does. In a pure nitrogen environment, your bloodcontains more oxygen than the “air” in your lungs, and the oxygen is literally suckedout of your blood. Only a few breaths will take you out. The rule in industry is, don’ttry to rescue someone trapped in a nitrogen environment—he is already dead. For thegood news, no cook or bartender has ever suffocated himself or herself with liquidnitrogen—yet. Don’t travel with large amounts of liquid nitrogen in an elevator. Ever.An elevator is an enclosed space where, if your LN storage vessel failedcatastrophically, you’d be trapped. Don’t carry liquid nitrogen in a car with you. Ifyou get in an accident and are knocked unconscious, you could be asphyxiated.

Yet more safety: liquid nitrogen should never be kept in a closed container. Ever.

As liquid nitrogen boils in a room-temperature environment, it expands by almostseven-hundred times. Tremendous pressure will build up inside a sealed vessel as thegas expands—thousands of psi. Usually the vessel you have chosen won’t withstandthe pressure and will explode. A young cook in Germany was permanently maimedand almost killed this way in 2009, in a tragic accident that occurred because of asimple mistake.

So why use liquid nitrogen? It is mesmerizing, fantastic stuff. It can chill glassesalmost instantly. It can chill and freeze herbs, fruits, drinks, and other products withoutcontaminating or diluting them in any way. As I’ve said, I love liquid nitrogen, and Idon’t know anyone who uses it who doesn’t. I like it so much that I worry myself. Onefurther caveat: in general, liquid nitrogen isn’t good for chilling single drinks; it isway too easy to overchill a drink using LN. A mildly overchilled drink might not tastegood, but that scoop of frozen booze you might try to serve someone could be coldenough to burn the tongue. I’ve been served overchilled LN booze sorbets that haveruined my taste buds for the night.

Everyone I know gets liquid nitrogen delivered from a local welding supplyshop. You store it in a piece of equipment called a dewar, an insulated vessel built tohold cryogenic fluids for a long time with minimal loss. Standard dewar sizes are 5,10, 25, 35, 50, 160, 180, and 240 liters. At Booker and Dax we have a 160-literdewar that our supplier refills every week. Larger amounts of liquid nitrogen are muchmore economical than smaller amounts. It costs me only $120 to fill my 160 but over$80 to fill a 35-liter dewar. The large dewars are also economical to rent; a smallmonthly fee and a hefty up-front deposit are all that is required to start using liquidnitrogen. A properly functioning 160-liter dewar will hold liquid nitrogen a long timebefore all the liquid evaporates away. If you have any skills with a torch at all, avoidthe costly take-off hose the company will try to sell you; make your own fromcommonly available copper parts. One more note: large LN dewars are kept under asmall amount of pressure, typically 22 psi. This pressure provides the force forremoving the liquid from the dewar. To maintain that 22 psi, the dewar has a reliefvalve that occasionally opens up and relieves excess pressure, making a hissingsound. The hissing really freaks people out. I reassure people by smiling and saying,“If it didn’t hiss, we’d all blow up.”

To dispense liquid nitrogen out of your tanks, don’t bother with the expensive hoses the LN folks try to sellyou. You can make your own takeoffs from readily available copper pipe and copper fittings sweatedtogether with lead-free solder. The doo-dad at the end is a sintered bronze muffler. It costs less than $9. Ifyou call that same thing a cryogenic phase separator, it costs $135.

We also have smaller 5- and 10-liter dewars that we use to shuttle LN around thebar during service. They are pretty pricey, a couple hundred bucks each. What weactually use to pour LN into drinks and glasses are vacuum-insulated coffee carafesand camp thermoses—unsealed, of course. Avoid carafes with a lot of plastic near thepour spout—they won’t last long.

DRY ICEDry ice, the other cryogenic cooking material, made of solidified carbon dioxide, isnot nearly as useful as liquid nitrogen. It seems attractive. While dry ice isconsiderably warmer than liquid nitrogen, at −78.5°C, it has considerably morechilling power per pound. Dry ice is also easier to buy and has fewer safety concernsthan LN does, but it loses out because it is a solid. You cannot immerse foods in dryice. Dry ice mixed into liquids doesn’t disappear as quickly as LN does. You can’tchill glasses very well with chunks of dry ice. Also, carbon dioxide gas is soluble inwater. If you aren’t careful, that drink you chill with a chunk of dry ice might get alittle carbonated. I primarily use dry ice to maintain the temperature of large batchesof drinks at events (see the Alternative Chilling section, here).

iSi CREAM WHIPPERSI love my whippers. They have three main uses at a bar: making foams (which I don’tdo), infusing nitrogen rapidly, and, in a pinch, carbonating. The best whippers I’veused are made by the iSi company. Cheaper whippers often leak, and some really badones lack the safety features that iSi builds in.

Essentially, whippers are metal pressure vessels that enable you to pressurizeliquids with a gas. The gas comes in small, 7.5-gram cartridges. You can buy eithercarbon dioxide cartridges or nitrous oxide (N2O) cartridges. The bubbles from CO2

make things taste carbonated, like seltzer, while the bubbles from N2O are a bit sweetand not at all prickly. N2O is also known as laughing gas, so some people use it as adrug, in which case the cartridges are known as whippets. N2O is the gas I use mostoften at the bar because I use it for infusions, to which I don’t want to add residualcarbonation.

The main downside of whippers is the high cost of the cartridges. Even thoughthey cost less than a dollar apiece, I often use two or three at a time, and costs add up.In fact, companies like iSi aren’t really making much money on the whipper; they wantyou to buy the cartridges. A last note on cartridges: you may not bring them onairplanes, even as checked luggage, because they are considered pressure vessels.This fact has always amused me, because almost every seat in an airplane has a lifevest under it powered by—guess what? An iSi compressed gas cartridge.

CARBON DIOXIDE GAS AND PARAPHERNALIACarbon dioxide is the gas used to carbonate drinks. Ten years ago there were twomain options available for carbonation: soda siphons (which work poorly) andcommercial carbonation rigs (for making soda in bars). Around 2005 I became awareof the carbonator cap made by the Liquid Bread company. Liquid Bread was startedby home-brew nuts who wanted a way to take samples of home-brewed beer tocompetitions and their buddies without losing carbonation. They developed a plasticcap that fits on ordinary soda bottles and easily hooks up to a CO2 line via a cheapball-lock connector obtainable from any home-brew shop. I started using that cap tocarbonate cocktails, and it changed my world. There are now tons of options forcarbonating at homes and at bars, and I have used many of them. None beats thecarbonator cap. Other systems look better and use nicer-looking containers, but I’venever had bubbles that I really liked out of any other system. As you’ll see later in theCarbonation section, I’m a bit of a bubble nut.

The whole carbonator-cap system is pretty inexpensive. All you need, besidesthe cap and connector, are a length of gas hose, a regulator, and a 5- or 20-pound CO 2

tank. The 5-pounder is small and easy to lug around and, depending on your technique,

will carbonate between 75 and 375 liters (20–100 gallons) of liquid. A 20-pound tankisn’t easy to lug around, but it will fit in a standard home under-counter cabinet. Aword of caution: you should use a chain or strap to prevent your tanks from fallingover. CO2 tanks are easily refilled at any welding shop. In fact, you can buy your tanksat the local welding shop, but it is often cheaper to buy them online; they are shippedempty. When you buy a regulator, make sure you buy a pressure regulator and not aflow regulator, because the latter won’t work. Also make sure you get a regulator thatcan produce at least 60, and preferably 100 psi (the higher pressure will be handy ifyou take up soda kegging as a hobby). Lower-pressure beer regulators will not work.

ICE TOOLSI am a fan of shaking with large ice cubes. You can purchase silicone molds that makesix 2-inch-by-2-inch square ice cubes that work great for shaking. Those molds willnot produce the crystal-clear-presentation ice I use for my rocks drinks; for thoseyou’ll need a rectangular Igloo cooler or other insulated container that fits in yourfreezer. To work with ice, I use two styles of ice pick: a multipronged pick and asingle-pointed pick. Both are of very high quality. Stay away from cheap ice picks;they will bend and frustrate you. I use an inexpensive flat-bladed slicing knife inconjunction with my ice picks to break large ice into smaller pieces in a controlledfashion. You should have some way to make crushed ice as well. The fancy way is toget a sturdy canvas bag called a Lewis bag and a wooden ice mallet to crush your iceright before you need it. The canvas soaks up melting water so your crushed ice isrelatively dry. I also use an old-school Metrokane crank-style ice crusher to makewhat I call pebble ice, which is a bit larger-grained than crushed ice from a Lewisbag.

ICE TOOLS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP): 1) Ice mallet, 2) multi-prong ice chipper, and 3) ice pick on top of4) a Lewis bag. Use the mallet to knock on a knife when cutting large blocks of ice, or to smash ice cubes

that you put in your Lewis bag. It’s better to crush ice in a Lewis bag than a plastic bag because the Lewisbag is absorbent and will yield dry crushed ice. Crushing in a cloth napkin also works, but the bag preventsice from flying around the room. The ice pick at the bottom and ice chipper on the right are high-qualitytools—avoid low-quality substitutes.

For shaved-ice drinks, which I enjoy immensely, I use a hand-cranked Hatsuyukiice shaver—a thing of beauty. Swan makes a similar model. For pros, I recommendgetting one of these. I like just looking at the cast-iron lines of my Hatsuyuki. It makesno noise, something I prize behind the bar. The noise from shaking a drink: inviting;the noise from whirring electric machinery: not so much. These shavers provide veryfine control over the texture of the shaved ice. They shave blocks of ice, not smallcubes. The cheapest way to make the blocks is to freeze small plastic soup tubs full ofwater.

For the budget-conscious, some remarkably cheap professional-size electric iceshavers are on the market now and perform admirably well, but they look kind ofjunky. It’d be worthwhile to get one of these for a shaved-ice party at home, as long asyou have room to store the shaver afterward. You wouldn’t want one on your counter.On the very inexpensive end, you can purchase hand ice shavers that look like littleblock planes. They are hard to adjust properly and are usually of poor quality. In myexperience, you can get them to work, but they are a pain in the butt. Apparently, I’mjust incompetent at using them, however, because every octogenarian street-cornershaved-ice peddler in my Lower East Side neighborhood seems to have no problemwith them. If you really have patience, there is always the Snoopy Sno-Cone Machineand its modern equivalents.

Hatsuyuki manual ice shaver–a thing of beauty and silence.

REFRIGERATION

At the bar I use very accurate Randell FX fridge/freezers to chill my carbonateddrinks and bottled cocktails. The FX can maintain any temperature I want between−4°F (−20°C) and 50°F (10°C) within 2°F. I’m very particular about the temperatureof my drinks. Without the FX, it would be difficult to maintain the quality of myprebatched drinks. I have one set to 18°F (−8°C) which I like for carbonated drinks,and one set to 22°F (−5.5°C), which is the temperature I like for my stirred-drink-stylebottled cocktails. Regular refrigerators are too warm for either of these applications,and freezers are too cold. I can’t stress enough how important accurate drinktemperature control is to the functioning of the bar.

RED-HOT POKERI build red-hot pokers to ignite and heat drinks at my bar. For why, and how to do ityourself, see the Red-Hot Pokers section, here.

VACUUM MACHINEVacuum machines are designed to seal foods in vacuum bags for preservation andsous vide cooking. For cocktails, I use them to infuse flavors into fruits andvegetables. Good machines are pricey—well over a thousand dollars—although youcan play around with vacuum infusion for much less money.

ROTARY EVAPORATORThe rotary evaporator, or rotovap as it’s called in the biz, is a piece of laboratoryequipment that enables you to distill in a vacuum instead of at atmospheric pressure.This is a good thing, for several reasons.

In distillation you boil a mixture of ingredients—typically water, alcohol,flavors, and (unavoidably) impurities—and convert a portion of that mixture intovapor. Everything that can boil in the liquid will be present in the resulting vapor tosome degree, but the concentration of substances with lower boiling points, likealcohol and aromatics, will be higher in the vapor than it was in the liquid. Thealcohol and flavor-enriched vapor then feeds into an area called the condenser, whereit cools down and condenses back into a liquid.

I n atmospheric pressure distillation , this process occurs at elevatedtemperatures in the presence of oxygen. In vacuum distillation, boiling occurs atlower temperatures, even at room temperature or lower, because reducing pressurereduces the boiling point. Vacuum distillation, therefore, is very gentle, because ithappens at low temperatures and in a reduced-oxygen environment that preventsingredients from oxidizing.

Another nifty feature of the rotovap is its rotating distillation flask. The rotationcreates a tremendous fresh liquid surface area, which enhances distillation and

promotes gentle, even heating of the mixture. Strangely, even if you are distilling atroom temperature, you need to add heat. If you don’t add heat, the mixture will cooldown as it distills because of evaporative cooling. If you had a good enough vacuum,you could even freeze the mixture this way.

ROTARY EVAPORATOR: You place liquid in the distillation flask (colored red) where it is warmed by awater bath, which is shown unfilled in this illustration for clarity. The distillation flask rotates to promoteeven heating and distillation. The vapor travels from the distillation flask to the condenser area (coloredblue), where it is cooled and either condenses back to a liquid or is frozen solid on the condenser,depending on conditions. This particular condenser is cooled with liquid nitrogen. Anything that remainsliquid after condensing drips into the receiving flask (colored green.) The entire process takes place at lowtemperatures because the system is kept under vacuum by a vacuum pump (colored yellow.)

Why Use One: The Good: Rotary evaporation can make distillates of freshproducts that taste fresher and cleaner than you’d think possible.Properly used,rotovaps can recover nearly all the flavors of the original mixture. Unlike atmospheric

stills, they can split flavors without changing them or losing them. I’ve distilledmixtures, recombined the leftovers with the distillate, and then blind-tasted against theundistilled liquid: people cannot tell them apart. The rotary evaporator is like a flavorscalpel. Use it artfully, and it allows you to manipulate flavors like no other piece ofequipment.

The rotovap has taught me to think about flavors in new ways. My favorite useshighlight how your brain integrates complex flavor inputs. A distillation of redhabanero peppers smells like it will kill you with spice but isn’t spicy at all, becausecapsaicin, the chemical that causes the burn, does not distill. Cacao distillates tastelike pure chocolate but lack the inherent bitterness of unsweetened chocolate becausethe bitter principles don’t distill. I’ve made distillations of herbs and broken theflavors down into dozens of fractions that I can recombine however I like. Flavorscalpel. I love my rotovap.

My rotovap flying along.

Sometimes you don’t want the distillate, you want the leftovers. Imagine thefreshness and punch of concentrated strawberry syrup that has never been heated.Simply remove the water from fresh clarified strawberry juice using the rotaryevaporator. Delicious. Port wine reductions done at room temperature? Ridiculous(don’t forget to drink the port “brandy”).

The Bad: Unfortunately, rotovaps have some problems that will keep them fromlanding in most homes anytime soon. First, they are expensive: fully decked out, theycost well over ten grand. The cheaper ones are horrible, often leaky and thereforeuseless. Second, rotovaps are very fragile because of all the fancy glassware theycontain. When you break a piece of glass in a rotovap—and you will—it’ll set you

back a couple hundred bucks. Third, there is a steep learning curve to achieving goodresults. You’ll get okay results quickly enough, but a novice operator will neverproduce products as good as those made by someone who’s been flying the rotovapfor years.

The Ugly: Last, laws prevent the distillation of alcohol in bars here in the UnitedStates. Consequently, many rotovap owners are constrained to distilling only water-based mixtures—no alcohol. Standard rotovap setups are woefully inadequate toproduce decent results without ethanol. Water just doesn’t hold on to flavors the wayethanol does, and the majority of the delicate aromas the rotovap is such a genius atcapturing are lost. I have worked long and hard to produce good water-baseddistillates. You must use a condenser filled with liquid nitrogen that freezes all theflavor compounds solid so they cannot escape. After you finish distilling, you meltyour frozen flavor directly into high-proof ethanol. A pain. The upshot of this gloomygraph is that while I would like to write a whole chapter on the rotovap—it is worthy—the world hasn’t caught up to it yet.

SHOPPING LISTSThese shopping lists will help you navigate the maze of cocktail equipment. They areorganized by desires and needs. Don’t want to make carbonated drinks? Skip thebubbles section. Want to try carbonation but don’t want to buy the rig on my list? I’llgive other options later. The only mandatory shopping list is the first one. After youhave your basic setup, you can add equipment from other lists as you wish. Sourcesfor most of these items can be found in the section here. Photographs of many of theitems appear here.

Remember not to get discouraged by the daunting nature of some of theequipment. In the techniques section of the book, I always try to give you a way to testcool techniques without breaking the bank.HEY, I JUST WANNA MAKE SOME GOOD DRINKS

1. Two sets of shaking tins2. Good jigger set3. a) Hawthorn strainer, b) julep strainer, and c) tea strainer4. Muddler5. Paring knife6. Y-peeler7. Bar spoon

I WANNA ACT LIKE A FANCY PRO WITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK

Add:

8. Bar mat9. Good ice pick

10. Dasher tops for bitters

11. Flat-bladed slicing knife (for ice) (not pictured)

12. Ice bucket and scoop (not pictured)

13. 2-inch ice-cube molds

14. Small rectangular Igloo cooler (not pictured)

15. Glass bottles with eyedroppers

16. Hand citrus press

17. Lewis bag or other ice crusher (not pictured)

THIS IS GOOD FOR MY KITCHEN TOO

Add:

18. High-speed blender, like a Vita-Prep

19. iSi whipped cream siphon

20. If you plan on making a lot of juice, a Champion juicer or equivalent

I’M GONNA MAKE SOME RECIPES THAT REQUIRE ACCURACY

Add:

21. Drug scale: 250 grams by the 1/10 gram

22. Kitchen scale: 5 kilos by the gram

23. Decent digital thermometer

24. Money permitting, 50 ml, 250 ml, and 1000 ml plastic graduated cylinders

BUBBLES

Add:

25. 5- or 20-pound CO2 tank

26. Regulator, hose, ball-lock connector

27. Three Liquid Bread carbonator caps

I’M AN EXPERIMENTER OR A STICKLER FOR ACCURACY

Add, in this order:

28. Refractometer

29. Micropipette

I’M CRAZY

Add:

30. Professional ice shaver

31. Red-hot poker

I’M NOT BANKRUPT YET: BIG-TICKET TECH I’M GONNA GET ONE AT A TIME, IF EVER

Add in this order:

32. Liquid nitrogen

33. Vacuum machine

34. Centrifuge (add this first if you are buying for a professional bar)

35. Rotary evaporator

BASIC BAR KIT: If you have everything in this picture you can execute any classic cocktail with style andgrace.

IF YOU WANT TO ACT LIKE A FANCY PRO: Get a bar-mat to capture unsightly drips and spills; a set oftwo-inch ice-cube molds to make big ice for shaking (you can use these cubes for rocks drinks as well); icepicks to work with larger ice cubes and chunks; dasher tops to make your own bitters bottles; an eyedropper for saline solution or tinctures; and a hand citrus press—because squeezing citrus between yourhands or reaming with a fork is goofy.

GOOD TO HAVE (LEFT TO RIGHT): Vita-Prep (Vitamix for home use)—if you can afford it, the onlyblender you should buy; ½-liter iSi cream whipper; Champion juicer.

IngredientsThe most important ingredient in a cocktail is the liquor, but I’m not going to spend along time on liquors here. There are innumerable books on the subject of spirits, and Ilist some of my favorites in the bibliography. Please buy good spirits, make sure youalways have high-quality vermouth on hand (store it in small containers in the fridge),and never run out of Angostura bitters. Otherwise you are on your own, because Iprefer to discuss ingredients that don’t receive enough scrutiny elsewhere—thesweeteners, acids, and salt that we use to augment the liquors.

SWEETENERSAlmost every cocktail contains something sweet, whether vermouth, liqueur, juice, orsugar. The sweetness in these ingredients comes from a small group of basic sugars,the most important of which are sucrose (table sugar), glucose, and fructose. Fructoseand glucose are simple sugars, while sucrose is composed of one molecule of glucosebonded to one molecule of fructose. You will commonly hear the oversimplificationthat fructose is 1.7 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar, remember), while glucoseis only 0.6 times as sweet. Luckily, very few sweeteners contain a preponderance ofglucose or fructose. Relatively equal mixtures of glucose and fructose, such as youfind in honey and most fruit juices, behave pretty much like sucrose does for cocktailpurposes, so most of the time these ingredients can be used interchangeably. Agavesyrup is an exception: over 70 percent of the sugar in agave nectar is fructose, so itdoes not act at all like table sugar. Read on to learn how sugars behave in cocktailsand syrups.

Honey (right) is far too viscous to pour and incorporate into cocktails. Honey syrup (left) is the way to go.

SWEETNESS AND TEMPERATUREThe colder your drink is, the less sweet it tastes. Thus drinks served very cold—shaken cocktails—typically have more added sweetener than ones served warmer—stirred cocktails . . . and those shaken drinks seem to get sweeter if they are allowed towarm up. We’ve all had the experience of tasting a drink and deeming it wellbalanced, only to taste it again a few minutes later and find it too sweet—one reasonto drink quickly, and in moderation, of course.

FRUCTOSEThe sweetness of fructose comes on faster and more intensely than sucrose but fades faster, too—hit andrun—something to pay attention to when mixing cocktails with agave nectar. The weirdest thing aboutfructose, however, is that it maintains its sweetness as it gets cold. Cold fructose is much sweeter than coldsucrose. Conversely, heating fructose makes it seem less sweet than sucrose. The upshot: drinks made withagave nectar might be balanced at room temperature but too sweet when chilled and not sweet enough whenheated. Why? Because fructose can exist in a number of different configurations with radically differentsweetnesses. The amount of each configuration present depends on temperature. In colder cocktailconditions, the sweet forms predominate. In hot drinks, the less sweet configurations are more prevalent.

SUGAR AND CONCENTRATIONA wrinkle: it’s very difficult to taste and judge sweeteners when they are in theirconcentrated ingredient form, like simple syrup and liqueurs. While our taste responseto sugars is fairly linear up to about 20 percent concentration, which includes the 4percent to 12 percent concentrations typically found in finished drinks, very weak andvery high sugar concentrations don’t behave linearly. Once you jack sugar contentabove 20 percent, your perception starts getting warped, and at 40 percent your palateis pretty much worthless. Simple syrup is 50 percent sugar, and many liqueurs have200 to 260 grams of sugar per liter (20–26 percent). These sweeteners must be tastedat the dilution and temperature at which they will be served to be properly judged.

SUGAR AT THE BARMost of the time we use liquid sugars (syrups) at the bar, because granulated sugarsdon’t dissolve quickly enough. These syrups need to measure and pour well in a jiggerand quickly and easily disperse with other cocktail ingredients. They need to be fairlyliquid but can’t contain so much water that they spoil easily or overdilute your drink.Two sugar levels hit the sweet spot and are thus commonly used in bar recipes: 50percent and 66 percent sugar by weight. Anything below 50 percent spoils too quicklyand overdilutes. Anything over 66 percent is hard to pour quickly and may crystallizein the fridge.

Simple Syrup Simple syrup is the default sweetener for cocktails, and

simple it is: just sugar and water. Simple comes in two varieties, 1:1(regular simple) and 2:1 (rich simple). Regular simple is 1 part sugar to 1part water by weight. Rich simple has 2 parts sugar to 1 part water byweight. Perhaps counterintuitively, rich simple is not twice as sweet asregular simple. Every fluid ounce of rich simple provides the samesweetening power as 1.5 ounces of regular simple. At the bar and in thisbook I use 1:1, regular simple, almost exclusively. It pours better and mixesquicker than 2:1. It is also more tolerant of bad jiggering than rich simple is.

Regular simple is easy to make. Put equal weights of sugar and waterin a blender and blend on high till the sugar is dissolved. If you have time,let the syrup settle for a few minutes to get rid of air bubbles. To make richsimple, or regular simple without a blender, heat the ingredients on a stoveuntil the syrup turns clear (indicating total dissolution) and then let the syrupcool. The disadvantages of stovetop simple are (1) you can’t use the syrupright away because it’s too hot, and (2) some water evaporates, throwing offyour recipe. If you don’t have a blender, stove, scale, or time, use superfinesugar. The crystals in superfine sugar are small enough to dissolve without ablender, and superfine comes in conveniently, though expensive,preweighed 1-pound (454-gram) boxes. Just add one box of superfine sugarto a pint (2 cups or 454 milliliters) of water, shake in a covered containerfor a minute, and you’re off to the races, no weighing necessary.

Many bartenders measure their sugar by volume, a practice Idiscourage. Granulated sugar and water do not have the same density.Domino-brand granulated sugar has a density of .84 gram per milliliterstraight out of the bag, while room-temperature water has a density of 1gram per milliliter—a 16 percent difference. If you tap on your measuringcup repeatedly to compact the sugar, you can achieve a density very close tothat of water, but few people go through that process, and it is more difficultthan weighing.

Both regular and rich simple can be left unrefrigerated for severalhours at a time, but eventually they will develop moldy, floaty occlusions.Store yours in the fridge.

Brown Sugar, Demerara Sugar, and Cane Syrup: Brown sugar is madeby adding molasses to refined white sugar. Demerara is crystallized sugarthat was never refined into white sugar. Cane syrup is unrefined sugar thathas been concentrated but not crystallized. All these sweetners have more orless of a rich molasses note. When using brown sugar or Demerara, make a1:1 syrup. Cane syrup has no standardized sweetness but is almost alwayssweeter than 1:1 syrup.

Honey: The taste of honey varies dramatically depending on the species offlower the bees visited during pollenation. While it’s fun to experiment withdifferent varieties, most bartenders settle on fairly neutral honeys, such asclover. I have tried many times to make a good drink with buckwheat honey,which is superdark and funky-tasting, but have had no luck.

Honey is roughly 82 percent sugar and very, very thick. It is hard to useat the bar unless you make it into a thinner syrup. To make a honey syrup thatcan be substituted for simple syrup in any recipe, add 64 grams of water toevery 100 grams of honey (note that the honey must be weighed; it is muchdenser than water). Unlike simple syrup, honey has some protein in it. Thoseproteins will increase the foaminess of shaken drinks, especially those withacidity in them as well.

Maple Syrup: Maple syrup is a fantastic cocktail sweetener. It is roughly67 percent sugar by weight, comparable to rich simple syrup. Every fluidounce of maple syrup is as sweet as 1½ fluid ounces of simple syrup.Flipped around, to replace 1 ounce of simple syrup, use ⅔ ounce maplesyrup; to replace ¾ ounce simple, use ½ ounce maple (remember, theseconversions are by volume!). Because maple syrup is expensive and I wantthe longest possible shelf life, I never water it down to typical simple-syruplevels. Maple syrup doesn’t need to be refrigerated on a short-term basis,and it is never dangerous to leave it at room temperature. A disgusting moldcan grow and spoil your syrup overnight, so keep it in the fridge for long-term storage, or boil it periodically. That mold tastes nasty—really nasty.Always smell the syrup before you pour it into your drink. I once ruined ahundred dollars’ worth of batched cocktail by adding moldy maple syrup.

Agave nectar is composed mainly of fructose, with a little bit of glucosemixed in. Usually it is around 75 percent sugar by weight—between maplesyrup and honey. The flavor changes from brand to brand. Fructosesweetness hits fast and decays fast, so use agave when you don’t want thesweetness to linger. When using agave nectar straight, use about 60 percentof what you would use for simple syrup by volume. To make an agavenectar that you can substitute for simple syrup, add 50 grams of water toevery 100 grams of agave nectar (note that the agave must be weighed; it ismuch denser than water). Agave nectar goes well in margaritas, but notbecause tequila is made from agave; that’s a coincidence. Agave does wellwith lemon-based drinks because the acidity of lemon is also fast attack, fastdecay (see the Acids section, here).

Quinine Simple: Quinine is the intensely bitter bark that gives bitterness totonic water. Use this simple syrup for making tonic water, or any time youwant the characteristic bitterness of tonic. (See the recipe here)

EMULSIFIED SYRUPS, BUTTER, AND ORGEATSFats don’t want to meld into drinks on their own. Oil and water, as everyone knows,don’t mix. But you can force them into drinks by making emulsions, typically in theform of a sweetened syrup. To make an emulsion you need an emulsifier, whose job itis to make oil and water live side-by-side. The emulsifier I use has the horrible nameTicaloid 210S and is made by TIC Gums, which, unlike most industrial foodcompanies, will sell to normal humans and not just large corporations. Ticaloid 210Sis a mixture of gum arabic, a fantastic emulsifier derived from tree sap, and xanthangum. Gum arabic is great for cocktail applications because its emulsions don’t breakwhen they are suddenly diluted, and they are immune to temperature changes, acidity,and alcohol. The xanthan is a stabilizer, which protects the emulsion from separating.If you can’t get Ticaloid 210S, you can substitute a mixture of powdered gum arabicand xanthan gum in the ratio of nine to one.

In 2009 I made my first Ticaloid syrup, a butter syrup that I used to make a coldbuttered rum. I love this stuff. This syrup has a lot of butter in it, so you have to usemore of it than you would regular simple syrup—1.5 times as much.

Butter SyrupINGREDIENTS200 grams water

10 allspice berries, crushed

3 grams TIC Gums Pretested Ticaloid 210S

150 grams melted butter

200 grams granulated sugar

PROCEDUREHeat the water and infuse the allspice berries for 5 minutes at a simmer, then strain outthe allspice. Hydrate the Ticaloid 210S in the allspice-infused water with a handblender. Add the melted butter and blend until smooth. Add the sugar and blend untilsmooth. This syrup can be stored at the bar until needed. It will separate over time butcan be stirred back together by hand.

MAKING BUTTER SYRUP: 1) Strain allspice out of hot water; 2) Blend in Ticaloid 210S emulsifier; 3)Emulsify in melted butter; 4) Blend in and dissolve sugar.

Cold Buttered RumMAKES ONE 53/5-OUNCE (168-ML) DRINK AT 16.4% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 8.6 G/100 MLSUGAR, .54% ACID

INGREDIENTS2 ounces (60 ml) spiced rum, such as Sailor JerryFat ounce (11⁄8 ounces, 33.75 ml) Butter Syrup1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lime juice

PROCEDURECombine the ingredients, shake with ice, and strain into a chilled old-fashioned glass.

COLD BUTTERED RUM: Notice the butter syrup doesn’t break after it has been diluted into a drink—themagic of gum arabic.

Soon after I developed the butter syrup, I started using this same technique withother oils—pumpkin seed, olive, and so on. My biggest successes came with nut oils,specifically pecan, which makes a truly fantastic syrup, especially when you add somenut solids into the mix. I realized I could use the Ticaloid to make my own orgeats.Technically, orgeat is an almond simple syrup mixed with a bit of rosewater, but I usethe word to mean any nut-flavored simple syrup made with nut milk and stabilizedwith Ticaloid (I don’t add rosewater). I’ve made pecan orgeats, peanut orgeats,pistachio orgeats. Any nut will work. Here is the procedure.

Any Nut Orgeat

FIRST MAKE NUT MILK600 grams very hot water (660 if you don’t have a centrifuge)200 grams nut of your choiceIf the nuts aren’t salted you can add some salt if you like

PROCEDUREBlend the water and nuts together in a Vita-Prep high-speed blender. Either strain andpress the nut milk through a fine strainer or spin the mixture in a centrifuge at 4000times the force of gravity for 15 minutes (see the Clarification section, here). If youuse the centrifuge, remove the fat and liquid portions from the top and save, discardingthe solids at the bottom—or save them to make cookies. Add salt if you like.

Straining nut milk can be tedious. At the bar I use a centrifuge, but at home I use a very fine strainer. A nutmilk bag is your other straining option.

THEN MAKE THE ORGEATFor every 500 grams nut milk:1.75 grams Ticaloid 210S0.2 gram xanthan gum500 grams granulated sugar

PROCEDUREIn a high-speed blender, combine the nut milk, Ticaloid, and xanthan. When they arecombined, add the sugar and blend until combined.

Pecan orgeat with a pecan bourbon sour in the background. If your nut milk contains too many nut-solidsthe syrup might break when you shake the drink. When this screwup happens, a quick spin with a stickblender will fix it.

MEASURING SWEETNESS AT THE BARIt is very helpful to have a quantitative idea of the sugar content of common drink ingredients. At the bar Iuse a refractometer to measure sugar content in Brix. Brix is the percent sucrose (table sugar) in a solutionby weight. One hundred grams of a 10-Brix solution will contain 10 grams of sugar. The problem is,refractometers don’t actually measure sucrose directly; they measure how much light passing through asolution is bent. Ingredients besides sugar, like alcohol, also affect how light is bent and throw off yourreadings, so the cardinal no-no with a Brix refractometer is trying to measure the sugar level of alcoholicbeverages.

Remember that Brix denotes sugar concentration by weight, not by volume. A 50-Brix syrup definitely doesnot contain 500 grams of sugar in a liter of syrup. A 50-Brix syrup (like regular simple syrup) has a densityof 1.23 grams per milliliter. A liter of simple syrup, therefore, weighs 1,230 grams and contains 615 grams ofsugar. Since cocktails are normally measured by volume, it is best to think of simple syrup as containing 615grams of sugar per liter. Rich simple (66 Brix) has a density of 1.33 grams per milliliter. A liter of it weighs1,330 grams and contains 887 grams of sugar, or 887 grams per liter, a little less than 50 percent sweeter thanregular simple.

Refractometers are most useful when measuring fresh fruit juices, which can vary widely in sugar content.No two batches of fruit are exactly the same. The sugar level of a particular fruit and its juice can changeradically from day to day. If blueberry juice is 11 Brix today and 15 Brix tomorrow, the drinks made withthose juices will obviously be different. At home you can change the balance of a recipe by taste based on thejuice you’ve got, but in a bar that practice is impractical. You can’t be sure those corrections will be madeproperly day in and day out by each person. So at the bar we chose a Brix level a couple points higher thanthe level the juice typically arrives at, and we correct each batch to that sweetness every time we make juice.Some juices we correct with sugar, some with honey, and some with cane syrup—whatever sweetener wethink will show off the best qualities of the juice. You don’t want to add too much sugar to a juice; you’re notlooking to add sweetness, you’re just looking to standardize. When making juices at home, you don’t need touse a refractometer to correct your juices, but the idea of Brix correction still comes in handy. Low-Brixversions of fruit juices tend to taste poor: flat, weak, and one-dimensional. Sometimes when you Brix-correctit by adding sugar, it tastes every bit as full and delicious as its high-Brix cousin. It doesn’t take a lot of sugar

to accomplish this miracle.

ACIDSIt is the rare cocktail that contains no acid. Sometimes the acidity is hidden in the formof vermouth or other wine-based ingredients, but it is almost always there. Almost allthe common acidic cocktail ingredients listed below are available in pure form fromhome-brew shops.

COMMON ACIDS IN COCKTAILSCITRIC ACID

Citric acid is the primary acid in lemon juice. On its own it tastes like lemon. Citric acid is clean, hits hard andfast, then fades rather quickly.

MALIC ACID

Malic acid is the primary acid of apples. On its own it tastes like green-apple candy. Its flavor lingers longerthan that of citric acid.

TARTARIC ACID

Tartaric acid is the primary acid of grapes. On its own it tastes like sour-grape candy.

ACETIC ACID

Acetic acid is vinegar, the only common food acid that is aromatic. It is used as a minor acid, especially inbitters and savory cocktails.

LACTIC ACID

Lactic acid comes from fermentation. On its own it is reminiscent of sauerkraut, pickles, cheese, and salami.Its agreeable use in cocktails might surprise you.

PHOSPHORIC ACID

Phosphoric acid is the only nonorganic acid in this group. It is extremely strong and dry. It is the characteristicacidulant (along with citric) of colas, and it was extremely popular in the soda fountain days. It is not availablefrom home-brew shops. I don’t use it much.

ASCORBIC ACID

Ascorbic acid is vitamin C. On its own it does not have much flavor or impart much acidity. It is usedprimarily as an antioxidant: it stops juices and fruit from turning brown. It is often confused with citric acid.

COMBINATIONS OF ACIDS

Different acids have different flavors. Mixtures of acids taste different from single acids in surprising ways.Citric acid tastes like lemon and malic acid tastes like apple, but a mixture of the two tastes like lime. Tartaricacid tastes like grape and lactic acid tastes like sauerkraut, but a mixture of the two is the characteristic acidof champagne.

Ascorbic acid is the acid that stops fruits and juices from turning brown. It does not taste very acidic.

TASTING ACIDSAcids are molecules that produce free hydrogen ions in solution. More hydrogen ionsmean more acidity. When scientists measure acidity, they measure pH, which directlycorrelates to the number of free hydrogen ions. Your tongue doesn’t work like a pHmeter, which means that pH meters are useless for cocktail work. Instead of sensinghow acidic something is, you much more closely sense how many acid molecules arepresent. Chemically, this measure is referred to as titratable acidity. This fact makesit very easy to convert back and forth between different types of acids, because mostorganic acids have roughly similar weights. You can switch a gram of citric acid for agram of malic or a gram of tartaric. It will taste different, but the acidity itself won’tbe too far off. In the rest of this book, therefore, I specify acidity as percent acidity perunit volume: 1 percent acidity means that a liter of juice contains 10 grams of acid.

LIME JUICE FRESHNESSI have run several taste tests of lime juice at different ages both in cocktails and in limeade. In these tests, thebatches are twenty-four, eight, five, three, and two hours old, and fresh. Not surprisingly, the day-old juicealways loses. Surprisingly, the lime juice that is several hours old usually wins over lime juice that issuperfresh. My subjects for these tests were predominantly professional American bartenders. Most goodAmerican bartenders use lime juice that is juiced at the beginning of the shift and therefore is several hoursold during service. My cocktail compatriot Don Lee ran this same test with a bunch of European bartenders,who typically juice their limes à la minute. They tended to choose fresh lime juice over any of the otherbatches. Best, therefore, may just be what you are used to.

LEMONS AND LIMESLemon juice and lime juice are the two most common acids at the bar. Both of them

are roughly 6 percent acid. The acidity of lemons is almost pure citric acid, while theacidity of lime juice is roughly 4 percent citric and 2 percent malic with a tiny bit ofsuccinic acid. Succinic acid tastes terrible on its own—bitter, metallic, bloody. But intiny amounts it really improves the flavor of lime juice. It is hard to get; you have topay exorbitant rates for it at chemical supply houses.

Because lemon and lime juices are similar in acidity, they are roughlyinterchangeable in a recipe from a quantity standpoint, though lime’s malic acidcontent means acidity lingers longer than lemon’s. Unlike juices from grapefruit,orange, and apple, which can be kept for a couple days or even longer, lemon and limejuices must be used the day they are made. Lime is the most fragile, starting to changethe moment it is juiced. I like lime juice best after it has rested for a couple hours.

The manner in which you juice a lemon or lime makes a difference. See theJuicers for Limes and Lemons section, here.

At 6 percent acidity, lemon and lime juice are fairly concentrated—a good thingfor cocktails. Typical sour cocktails will require only ¾ ounce (22.5 ml) of lemon orlime juice to tart them up. Most other juices are not acidic enough, so I often makeacid blends that mimic the strength of lime juice to augment my cocktail work. Someexamples:

Lime AcidLime acid is what it says it is: a stand-in for lime juice. I would never use it instead offruit, but it can be used to bolster fruit with a bit of acidity. For real authenticity, addthe succinic, though it can be omitted.

INGREDIENTS94 grams filtered water4 grams citric acid2 grams malic acid0.04 gram succinic acid

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients. Stir until dissolved.

Lime Acid OrangeOrange juice is typically 0.8 percent citric acid—not acidic enough to use in a proper

sour. You can purchase sour oranges, which are delicious, but I often find myself witha glut of regular oranges whose peels I have used as a cocktail garnish. I correct theirjuice with acids to give it the same acid profile as lime juice. Be careful when juicingoranges; some of them, including many navel varieties, will turn bitter after the juicesits around for a while.

INGREDIENTS1 liter freshly squeezed orange juice32 grams citric acid20 grams malic acid

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients. Stir until dissolved.

The Dr. J (here) is made with lime-acid orange juice and tastes like an orange Julius.

Champagne AcidThe primary acids in grapes are tartaric and malic. But those aren’t the primary acidsin most champagne, which goes through a process called malolactic fermentation, inwhich malic acid is converted to lactic acid. White wines and champagnes (like Krug)

that don’t go through malolactic fermentation have a characteristic green-apple note totheir acidity, whereas those that have gone through malolactic do not. So my standardchampagne acid is a 1:1 mixture of tartaric and lactic acids. This acid mix tends tocrystallize a bit when it sits around; don’t worry about it, just shake it up. This acidblend is surprisingly versatile. I use it in carbonated drinks or any time I want to add abit of that champagne feeling to a cocktail. I rarely use it as the sole acidity in a drink.

INGREDIENTS94 grams warm water3 grams tartaric acid3 grams lactic acid (use the powder form)

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients. Still until dissolved.

SALTSalt is the secret ingredient in almost all my cocktails. Any cocktail that includes fruit,chocolate, or coffee benefits from a pinch of salt. I rarely want a drink to taste salty;the salt should be subthreshold. The next time you make a cocktail, divide it into twoglasses and add a pinch of salt to one glass but not the other. Taste the difference—youwill never forget the salt again. At home you can get away with adding a pinch. At thebar we have to be more precise, so we use a saline solution: 20 grams of salt in 80milliliters of water (20 percent solution). A drop or two of this is all it takes to make acocktail pop.

I add a couple drops of saline solution (20 grams of salt in 80 grams water) to most of my drinks. It doesn’tmake drinks taste salty—just better. At home you can just use pinches of salt if you don’t want to makesaline.

PART 2

TRADITIONAL COCKTAILS

Our investigation of cocktails begins where it must: with the basics. When I say traditional cocktails, I don’t meanclassic cocktails. I mean cocktails whose production requires nothing more than ice, booze, mixers, and a modicumof equipment—shakers, mixing glasses, spoons, and strainers. Generations of bartenders have developed thousandsof delectable cocktails with these simple building blocks.

Section 1 deals with the science, production, and use of ice, the way ice interacts with booze, and theFundamental Law of Cocktails.

Section 2 deals with shaken and stirred, built and blended drinks, with a final word on the underlying structure ofall cocktail recipes.

Ice, Ice with Booze, and the Fundamental LawIce by ItselfIce is simply frozen water. It doesn’t seem like there would be that much to say aboutit. Just put water in your freezer and freeze it. But in fact, making ice can be quitecomplicated, and modern bartenders spend a lot of their time trying to recreate aspecific type of pure, clear ice that was the norm in the days before mechanicalrefrigeration. Here is the story of ice, the science behind it, and why you should care.

CLEAR ICE AND CLOUDY ICE, LAKE ICE AND FREEZER ICEBefore mechanical refrigeration, people harvested winter ice from lakes and riversand stockpiled it in large icehouses for use throughout the year. By the mid 1800s icedealers were shipping lake and river ice from northern locales to points around theglobe, including the tropics. The golden age of the iced cocktail began. (For more onthe subject of the early ice business, read The Frozen Water Trade ; see FurtherReading, here).

How could ice sit through sweltering heat on a non-air-conditioned boat for manyweeks and survive well enough to make the trip worthwhile? The answer is in arelationship that’s critical to cocktail making, and we’ll return to it again and again:the relationship between surface area and volume. The amount of ice that melts in agiven length of time is proportional to how much heat gets transferred into the ice. Theamount of heat transferred is in turn directly proportional to the surface area of iceexposed to the environment. As something gets larger, its surface area increases, butnot nearly as fast as its volume does. Tripling the size of a cube increases the surfacearea by a factor of 9 (surface area goes by the square : 32 = 9) and the volume by afactor of 27 (volume goes by the third power: 33 = 27). Huge volumes of ice,therefore, melt much, much more slowly than small volumes of ice. This fact madeintercontinental ice shipments possible, and this same fact is fundamental to figuringout how cocktails work.

Together, the 27 small ice cubes on the bottom have the exact same weight and volume as the single cube onthe top, but they have three times the surface area, and therefore three times the surface water.

You might think that ice harvested from lakes and rivers would be inferior to icemade from purified water in modern freezers. Not so. It is crystal clear, while icefrom your freezer typically is not. Cloudy ice is every bit as good at chilling as clearice is, but clear ice looks a whole lot nicer in your cocktail. Clear ice is also easier tocarve into whatever shapes you want (big, beautiful 2¼-inch cubes are my favorite).Cloudy ice shatters when cut and when shaken. Many bartenders believe that the tinyshards created by cloudy ice shattering in shaking tins water down their drinksexcessively, a statement that is both true and false, as we will see when we deal withthe science of shaking. Regardless, clear ice is alluring, and pretty much everybartender wants it. Nothing beats the look of an old-fashioned served over a water-clear hand-cut ice cube. If you don’t care about beautiful clear ice, go ahead and usecloudy ice-cube-tray ice, just please read the section on Making Good Everyday Icehere. Your cocktails will taste just fine. But if you like good things, read on. The nextsection tells the strange story of how ice forms and why lake ice is clear. If all youwant to know is how to make your own clear ice, skip to the section on Making ClearIce in Your Freezer, here.

HOW ICE FORMSTo understand how to make clear ice, you must understand how it forms. Lake ice isclear because it is formed layer by layer from the top down. The crystals first form onthe surface of the water and then grow downward, getting thicker and thicker. But whydoes the ice form on the top of the lake, and why does it matter?

Most everything gets denser and shrinks as it cools down. Water doesn’t. Liquid

water is actually densest at around 4°C. Chilling water below 4°C will actually causeit to expand. This property is super-duper rare, and is fittingly called the “anomalousexpansion of water.” This anomalous expansion is lucky, because it means that thedensest water—the water that will sink to the bottom of a lake in winter—isn’t thewater that is about to freeze. The water that is about to freeze—the stuff at 0°C—willfloat at the top. If water didn’t behave this way, no aquatic life could survive thewinter in cold climes. It would be frozen out.

Even weirder, while almost everything contracts when it solidifies, waterexpands by about 9 percent as it freezes. Ice floats because liquid water molecules,which are free to move around, can pack more densely than the rigidly aligned watermolecules in ice. Force from expanding ice is tremendous, easily shattering rocks andwater pipes in winter and bottles of beer accidentally left in your freezer. Theanomalous expansion of water and the freeze expansion of ice explain why ice formsat the top and grows down. Because of anomalous expansion, the top of the water iscoldest, so it freezes first, and because of the freeze expansion of ice, the ice floats ontop.

But there is more to clear ice than that. Why doesn’t ice form as masses of tinycrystals, like snow, instead of in large clear sheets? The answer has to do with aphenomenon known as supercooling.

The freezing point of water is 0° Celsius, but water won’t start to freeze at 0°unless ice is already present. Water needs to be chilled below 0° to form ice crystals—it needs to be supercooled. Remember our discussion of surface area and volume:very small crystals have a very large surface-area-to-volume ratio. Large surfaceareas encourage melting. Even at the freezing point, tiny crystals want to melt. For icecrystals to grow at 0°, they need something to grow on—either an existing ice crystalor something of a similar size and shape, like a speck of dust. Without a place forcrystals to grow, the water will continue to cool below 0° without freezing—aprocess called supercooling. As water supercools, it becomes easier for new crystalsto form. Eventually, in a process called nucleation, a batch of crystals will form in thesupercold water. After nucleation occurs, those initial crystals will start to grow andthe water will heat back up to 0° again. Why? Water heats up as ice is formedbecause freezing ice gives off heat—a counterintuitive fact. Water freezing to icegives off heat because it is going from a higher-energy state—a liquid—to a lower-energy state—a solid.

You might think that after the initial nucleation, ice crystals could continue toform anywhere in a freezing lake. They don’t. After initial nucleation—once the waterhas supercooled and ice crystals have formed—those crystals grow and thesurrounding water heats back up to 0°. Because the growing ice crystals keep the

temperature of the nearby water at or near 0°, new crystals can’t form. Forming newcrystals would require more supercooling.

As those crystals near the top of the lake grow, they grow fairly slowly, and theygrow clear. Unpurified water contains all kinds of dissolved and suspended crud: gas,salt, minerals, bacteria, dust. Crud. But as water freezes onto an existing ice crystal, itsheds and pushes out impurities such as trapped air, dust, dirt, minerals, and othercontaminants; those things just don’t fit in ice’s crystal lattice. Very rapid freezing, incontrast, tends to produce many nucleation sites with smaller crystals; these smaller,fast-forming crystals can grow around and trap impurities, making disruptions in thecrystal lattice and producing gassy, cloudy ice.

Now we are in a position to understand why standard freezer ice is cloudy. Ice-cube trays freeze water relatively rapidly, leading to the inclusion of impuritiesbetween crystal boundaries and thus cloudy ice. Ice in a freezer also tends to formfrom all sides of its container and grow toward the center of the cube, with the centerfreezing last. The water trapped in the center of a cube has no place to release gas andother impurities, so cloudiness is guaranteed. Even worse, as the water freezes insideits ice prison, it builds up tremendous force by freeze expansion, eventually shatteringthe outer portions of the ice cube and forming those mountain peaks you often see inhome ice. The solution: get your freezer to act like a lake, so it freezes ice slowly andfrom one direction only.

MAKING CLEAR ICE IN YOUR FREEZERLarge blocks of clear ice are professionally produced for bartenders and ice sculptorsin a machine called a Clinebell freezer, which acts like nature upside down.Clinebells freeze single blocks of ice weighing hundreds of pounds by freezing fromthe bottom only, constantly stirring the top of the water to prevent it from freezing overand scouring the surface of the forming ice to keep air bubbles out. As water freezes ina Clinebell, impurities are concentrated in the remaining liquid. You throw out the lastof the water with all the impurities before it freezes. I once built my own version of aClinebell and froze a 200-pound cylinder (25 gallons) of water. The gallon of waterthat I threw away at the end was dark brown and disgusting. Going in, the waterappeared crystal clear. After concentrating, the impurities were quite apparent.

These ice cubes are arranged just as they were in their freezer tray. Notice the outsides—which froze first—are pretty clear. As the cubes continued to freeze, gas came out of solution and left trails of air bubbles. Atsome point, the ice formed a shell around the whole cube, trapping liquid water. When that last stuff frozethere was no place for impurities to go and no place for the freezing water to expand, so you get bulging,fractures, and white haze.

You don’t need a Clinebell to make good ice. At home, freeze large blocks of icein an insulated container with an open top, like a small Igloo cooler without the lid.The water in the cooler will start to freeze from the top, because the top is the onlyside that’s not insulated. As freezing progresses, the water will keep freezing from thetop, because heat from the freezing water is conducted more easily through the solidblock of ice (a surprisingly good conductor of heat) than through the insulated sides.Because most of the water and ice is shielded with insulation, freezing is slow, whichpromotes the growth of large crystals that exclude gases and impurities, which getconcentrated in the remaining liquid water.

If you try to make clear ice starting with cold water you’ll get lots of air bubbles from trapped gasses.

Fill the cooler fairly high, but not so full that you spill water getting the thing intoyour freezer. Use hot water, which has fewer trapped gases than cold water. Don’t putthe hot water directly in your freezer; let it cool first, but don’t pour it after it cools oryou’ll just trap more gases. (Hot water in a freezer will partially defrost your food,causing small ice crystals to melt. When your food refreezes the water willrecrystallize on the remaining large crystals, making those crystals even larger andruining the texture of your food.) A couple gallons of water will take several days tofreeze in a standard freezer. Pull the cooler out of the freezer before it freezescompletely, so you can drain off the impure residue. If you screw up and freeze all thewater, no big deal: you can just cut the unclear stuff off the bottom. It is very difficultto judge how thick an ice cube is just by looking into the top of the cooler. I have beenfooled into thinking that the water in my cooler was almost frozen solid, just to findout that I had a mere 2- or 3-inch-thick frozen slab.

When you remove the cooler from the freezer, don’t immediately try to cut theice. Let it sit and temper.

TEMPERING CLEAR BUT TEMPERAMENTAL ICEAll ice is 0°C or colder, but it can be much colder or barely colder, and if you’remaking cocktails, barely colder is better. Cold ice shatters and is no fun to work with,while ice that has warmed up to freezing temperature is a pleasure. You can tell the

difference just by looking at it. Look at ice as it comes out of the freezer: it will takeon a satiny appearance as moisture condenses on it and freezes. Large andexceptionally cold pieces of ice might accumulate a layer of ice crystals. The icewon’t look wet. This is a visual indication that your ice is too cold to work with. As itwarms up, however, you will see the ice change from dry and frosted to wet and clear.When the block is clear and glistening, it is sufficiently tempered—its temperature hasalmost reached the freezing point, and it is ready to be cut or used in drinks.

Ice is a good conductor of heat, so it won’t take long to temper most of the iceyou’ll be working with. Doubling the thickness of the ice block increases thetempering time by a factor of 4; a 2-inch-thick slab should temper in less than 15minutes, a 4-inch block in less than an hour.

Don’t try to speed up the tempering process. Ice straight out of the freezer isunder tremendous stress as it warms. Stress develops because ice expands (as mostsubstances do) as it warms up. The ice on the outside warms faster than that on theinside, causing the outside to expand faster than the inside. Ice left alone on a counterin air usually withstands this stress just fine, because air is a poor conductor of heat;but try to speed up the warming and the ice will crack, just like ice cracks when youthrow it straight from the freezer into a glass of water.

HOW TO MAKE CRYSTAL CLEAR ICE AT HOME

To ensure bubble-free ice, pour hot water into cooler.*

For this size cooler (6.5 gallon), ice will be thick enough after 24–48 hours.

Invert cooler and allow ice to unmold itself—some water will spill out.

Shave excess ice shards off bottom of block.

Finished block of bubble-free ice.

Score block on both sides with straight-bladed serrated knife.

Lightly tap along back of blade with mallet or rolling pin so ice cleaves into perfect columns.

Using same tapping motion, cut columns into cubes.

CHOPPY CHOPPY: CUTTING CLEAR ICEOnce you have successfully made clear and tempered ice, you will be surprised to seehow easy it is to work with. Woodworking tools will cut it with ease. Professional icecarvers use chainsaws, wood gouges, chisels, and electric grinders. In the bar I mainlyuse ice picks and a long, straight, inexpensive slicing or bread knife. Ice picks can beused to chip and sculpt and to score lines in ice to facilitate cutting, but really 99percent of all your ice work can be done with just a bread knife. The knife can neatlydivide a slab or block into perfect cubes and shape a cube into smaller diamonds orspheres. The trick is to lay the edge of that knife on the surface of the ice and gentlyrub it back and forth a bit. The highly conductive metal knife will tend to melt a small,thin crevice on the surface of the ice. This line concentrates stress in the ice block andprovides a place for cracks to start—much like scoring a tile or piece of glass beforeyou cut it. Place the ice on a nonslip surface (I use a bar mat), keep the blade incontact with the ice, and simply tap on the back of the blade with a mallet or otherheavy object, and the block will cleave cleanly in two. Cutting ice this way is one ofthe easiest things you can learn to do, yet it always garners the admiration of onlookerswho aren’t in the know. For more complicated manipulations, see the ice books in theFurther Reading section, here.

I tried to cut this ice while it was too cold. It shattered like glass.

This piece of ice is too cold to cut. It looks dry and frosty.

MAKING GOOD EVERYDAY ICE (WHEN YOU DON’T NEEDCLEAR ICE)If your ice will appear in a finished cocktail or needs to be cut, you should use clearice (remember, cloudy ice just shatters). When you are shaking or stirring drinks, youdon’t need presentation ice. But randomly made megacloudy ice is no good, as it willshatter unpredictably for almost no reason at all. Shattering ice creates anunpredictable slush of ice crystals when you shake—not what you want. Megacloudyice is also really ugly—much uglier than moderately cloudy ice. So take a little extratrouble to make only moderately cloudy ice.

This ice is fully tempered and cuts with ease.

Megacloudy ice can be caused by quickly freezing contaminated or gassy water.If your water has a lot of impurities, you can invest in a filtration or reverse osmosissystem. Getting rid of trapped gases and chlorine is easy: just use hot water. If yourpipes have lead, you can heat cold water to drive off chlorine and other gases on thestove. Less dissolved gas equals less cloudy ice.

Avoid stacking ice trays on top of one another. The trays in the middle producehopelessly cloudy, useless cubes, because they freeze almost equally from all sides,trapping the maximum amount of crud inside.

THE SHAPE AND SIZE OF ICE TO MAKEFor stirred cocktails not served on a rock, you can use any size or shape of ice. As wewill see, you may have to alter your stirring technique to accommodate your ice, butany ice will work fine. For the very best texture for shaken drinks, however, youshould freeze large cubes. Cubes 2 inches on a side are good, and very easy to make.Buy flexible ice-cube molds, but be choosy about which ones. My bartender friendEben Freeman discovered years ago that some silicone molds impart an off taste toice. The ones I purchase from Cocktail Kingdom are made from flexible polyurethane,and after thorough testing, I’m convinced they produce no off tastes. If you don’t wantto buy anything, you can freeze water in square metal cake pans. Some of the ice from

such a pan will be megacloudy and useless, but a lot will be presentation-clear, andyou can cut it away from the cloudy part after the ice is tempered.

Now that we have our ice, let’s turn to ice with booze.

Ice with BoozeIce at 0° Celsius can chill a cocktail below 0° Celsius. In fact, ice-chilled cocktailsare routinely as cold as −6°C (21°F). Some people have a difficult time believing thisimportant fact. They think their ice must have started below 0°C to make their cocktailthat cold. Let’s make a martini to verify this chilling phenomenon. We’ll go through abit more rigamarole than the drink requires in order to prove our point.

EXPERIMENT 1

EXPERIMENT 1

Practice Stirring a Martini

Water pitcherCopious iceDigital thermometer2 ounces (60 ml) of your favorite gin (or vodka), at room temperatureBetween 3⁄8 and 1⁄2 ounce (10–14 ml) Dolin dry vermouth (or your favorite),at room temperatureMetal shaking tinBar or kitchen towelMartini glass or cocktail coupe waiting in the freezerStrainer1 or 3 olives on a toothpick, or a lemon twistINGREDIENT NOTE: I am allowing for quite a bit of leeway in theformulation of this cocktail. Half the fun of a martini is arguing over how itshould be made. (And by the way, you should never apologize for your tastepreferences. The only faux pas is not caring.) Because this is a stirringexperiment, we will put the debate over shaking versus stirring aside—fornow.

PROCEDUREFill the pitcher with ice and top up with water. Stir the water and ice, using yourinstant-read thermometer, until the temperature of the water is 0°C (32°F), whichmeans your ice is also at 0°. Don’t skip this step: it is crucial that you witness the factthat the ice is in fact at 0°C. Many people believe that the ability of ice to chill acocktail below 0° comes from “extra coldness” that ice stores up in the freezer. If youare in doubt, continue stirring for a couple of minutes to verify that nothing is changingand everything in the pitcher is at 0°.

Put the gin and vermouth into the metal tin and measure the temperature with yourthermometer. It should be room temperature, roughly 20°C. Scoop a large handful ofice out of the water pitcher—about 120 grams’ worth (3 ounces), pat it with a towel todry it a bit, shake off any surface water with your hands, then add it to the shaking tin.Start stirring with your digital thermometer and don’t stop.

Within about 10 seconds, the drink should be at about 5°C. Keep stirring. Within about30 seconds, the drink should be around 0°C. Most bartenders (including myself)

would have stopped by now. Keep stirring. The temperature will drop below 0°.Keep stirring! The temperature will keep dropping! After a minute of constant stirring,your drink might be as cold as −4° Celsius (−25°F), depending on the size of your iceand how fast you are stirring. If you stir for up to 2 minutes, you might be able to getthe drink down to −6.75°C. You’ll notice that after 2 minutes or so the temperaturestabilizes and doesn’t get much lower. You’ve reached equilibrium, or close to it.

Pull your cocktail glass out of the freezer and strain the martini into it. Garnish withthe olive(s) or lemon twist.

If I were making this drink for consumption instead of an experiment, I would neverstir so long—the martini would be too diluted. If you prefer your martini shaken(which usually dilutes more than stirring does), you might find this 2-minute martinirefreshing.

Now that you have proven that ice can chill a cocktail to a temperature belowice’s own freezing point, you might want to know why this happens. How can icemake something colder than itself? (This gets pretty technical, so if you can’t deal,skip ahead to Chilling and Diluting, here, and uncomplainingly accept some of myfuture claims at face value.)

INTERESTING COCKTAIL PHYSICS THAT YOU CAN IGNOREIF YOU DON’T CAREYou can go down a few different paths to understanding how ice chills below 0°(colligative properties and vapor pressure, for all you science types), but the bestapproach is to see the problem as a tug of war between enthalpy and entropy, twodifficult and oft-misunderstood concepts at the heart of thermodynamics.Thermodynamics is the branch of science that explains why perpetual-motionmachines can’t exist and how the universe will eventually die. Deep stuff.

For our purposes, enthalpy can be thought of simply as heat energy, because wecan think of a change in enthalpy as the measure of the heat absorbed or releasedduring a reaction or process. (Science disclaimer: this statement is true only when ourreactions take place at a constant pressure.) Entropy is a much wackier concept. It ismost often explained as a measure of how disordered a system is, but entropy is muchmore than that. The following explanation might be a bit much for some readers tobear, but I promise that, apart from the word entropy, there isn’t much jargoninvolved. Remember, we are trying to figure out why ice can chill an alcoholic drinkbelow 0°.

HEAT AND ENTROPY TUG OF WAR: THINGS ARE LAZY BUT WANT TOBE FREE

The tug of war works like this: heat energy always wants to freeze your ice cube;entropy always wants to melt your ice cube. The relative power of these twocontestants is determined by temperature. When you are making a cocktail, the tug ofwar always ends in a tie, but where it ends—the freezing temperature—can change.

Heat—the Lazy One: When I say heat, I don’t mean temperature. Heat isnot the same as temperature. To melt ice, you add heat but you don’t changeits temperature. Ice begins to melt at 0° and stays at 0° until it hascompletely melted, even though you are constantly adding heat energy tobreak water molecules free from their icy crystal prisons. Heat is a form ofenergy. Temperature is merely a measure of the average speed of themolecules within a substance. People often confuse these terms because toincrease the molecules’ speed—to increase temperature—you add heat.

When water freezes, it gives off heat. The heat that the ice gives off iswhat your freezer absorbs. Because ice gives off heat as it freezes, theinternal energy of ice is lower than the internal energy of water at the sametemperature. It is super-important to remember that point: freezing watergives off heat. Melting ice absorbs energy—it requires heat to melt. Ingeneral, all things being equal, reactions that give off heat and result in alower internal energy are favored in nature, because in general, things wantto go to a lower-energy state. Things are lazy. Making ice gives off heat, sothe change in heat favors water turning to ice.

Entropy Pines to Be Free: Entropy is a different story. If you look atentropy as a measure of disorder, increasing entropy increases disorder. Afundamental tenet of thermodynamics is that the entropy of the universe isconstantly increasing; hence the universe is constantly becoming moredisordered (yay). A better way to define entropy is as a measure of howmany different states something can be in. Scientists call these microstates.Things tend to maximize the number of available microstates and thencommence to occupy those microstates in a random way. Things tend toincrease in entropy. Things want to be free.

At any given temperature, there are more available positions, speeds,configurations—microstates—in a liquid than in a solid. Water molecules,for instance, are free to spin around and find new neighbors, while icemolecules are locked in a crystal. Being in a solid is more constraining thanbeing in a liquid, so changes in entropy favor ice melting into water.

So Which Wins, Enthalpy or Entropy? It depends on temperature.Temperature, remember, is a measure of how fast, on average, the

molecules in a substance are moving around. The higher the temperature is,the faster the molecules are moving. Faster molecules can achieve moredisorder than slower ones, so the higher the temperature is, the more likelyit is that entropy will win the tug of war and melt your ice. As thetemperature goes down, the energy release from freezing tends to dominate,and water freezes. The freezing point of water (0°C) is the point at whichthe entropy gain from ice melting to water is exactly balanced by the amountof heat given off by water freezing into ice.

The surface of an ice cube in water is not static. Water molecules areconstantly freezing onto and melting off the surface. If more molecules aresticking to the ice than leaving it, we say the ice is freezing. If moremolecules are leaving than sticking we say the ice is melting. At the freezingpoint, water molecules are constantly freezing into ice and melting intowater at the same rate—they are in equilibrium.

If you lower the temperature, the entropy gain from melting becomespuny and water freezes. If you raise the temperature, the entropy win frommelting outstrips the enthalpy and the ice melts. Got it?

SPECIFIC HEAT, HEAT OF FUSION, AND CALORIESDifferent substances require different amounts of heat to raise and lower their temperature. The measure ofthis property is called specific heat. In calories, specific heat is the amount of energy required to raise thetemperature of 1 gram of something 1° Celsius. Although the calorie is an outdated scientific unit (the joule ispreferred), calories are useful for cooks and bartenders because they relate to temperatures and weights wecan easily understand (note: calories in food are really kilocalories—1000 calories). For water, the specificheat is a very convenient 1 calorie per gram per degree. Ice has a lower specific heat than water: 0.5 caloriesper gram per degree. That means it requires only half the energy to heat or cool ice that it does to cool thesame amount of water, and that unless ice is melting or freezing, it can supply only half the heating or coolingpower that water can. Pure alcohol has a specific heat of 0.6 calories per gram per degree. The specificheats of water-alcohol mixtures (cocktails) are, unfortunately, nonlinear. Cocktails actually take more energyto heat or cool than either water or alcohol alone. Weird.

There’s a second important heat-related property. Remember, to melt ice you must add heat. The amount ofheat required to melt ice is called the heat of fusion (or the enthalpy of fusion). The heat of fusion worksboth ways. That is, it takes the same amount of heat to freeze something as it does to melt it. The heat offusion of water is about 80 calories per gram. Thinking in calories lets you visualize how powerful ice reallyis. Eighty calories per gram means the heat required to melt 1 gram of ice is sufficient to heat 1 gram ofwater all the way from 0° to 80° C! More to the point, melting 1 gram of ice is sufficient to chill 4 grams ofwater from room temperature (20°C) all the way to 0°. We take ice for granted, but it is a miraculoussubstance. Gram for gram, liquid nitrogen, positively frigid at −196°C (−320°F), has only 15 percent morechilling power than ice does at a measly 0°C. A mere 15 percent! This startling fact explains why techieneophytes always underestimate how much liquid nitrogen they will need for a given project.

WHAT ABOUT MY MARTINI? WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I ADDEDALCOHOL?

Let’s look at the point where you’ve stirred your martini and it has just reached 0°C.You have ice at 0° and a water-booze mixture also at 0°. When ice molecules meltinto your cocktail, they absorb heat. The amount of heat absorbed is the same as if theice were melting into pure water. The amount of heat absorbed from melting—the heatchange—hasn’t been altered by placing the ice in alcohol, because the ice is still pureice. The entropy change associated with melting in alcohol is different, however. If awater molecule in our ice melts into the gin, the entropy gain is greater than it wouldbe in the pure-water situation. Why? A mixture of water and alcohol is moredisordered than a mixture of water alone. A scientist might say that there are moreways to arrange a group of water molecules and alcohol molecules uniquely than thereare to arrange the same number of identical water molecules. More disorder, moreavailable microstates. Entropy is winning again. When entropy wins, ice melts. Sowhat happens? The ice starts to melt. What happens when ice melts? Cooling takesplace. Melting ice absorbs heat and chills our drink below 0°. There is no externalheat source to supply the heat needed to melt ice, so the heat is drawn from the systemitself, and as a consequence, the entire system chills. The drink and the ice itself gobelow 0°.

As the ice melts and the gin gets more diluted, the size of the entropy win over theheat loss from melting decreases. Melting continues to happen until a new equilibriumis reached, when the entropy and heat become balanced again. That balance point isthe new freezing temperature of our martini.

By the way, this same argument explains why salt added to ice can lower thetemperature of the ice enough to freeze ice cream. Unfortunately, instead of getting thereal explanation, most kids are just taught that the ice-and-salt trick works because“salt lowers the freezing point of water.” Weak. Now that you are an adult, the truthcan be told.

Chilling and DilutingEvery gram of ice melted provides 80 calories of chilling power. To put that power inperspective, an average 3.5-ounce (90-ml) daiquiri will melt between 55 and 65grams of ice when you shake it for 10 seconds. That averages 2000 watts of chillingpower . . . per drink. Shake four of those bad boys at once and you are blasting 8000watts of chilling power.

All ice has the same 80 calories per gram of chilling power, regardless of howbig it is or how fancy it is, but how that chilling power is delivered depends on theice’s size and shape. The difference between big ice cubes and small ones is theirsurface area. Smaller pieces of ice have more surface area for a given weight thanlarger pieces. These smaller pieces can therefore chill faster, which is good, but they

also have more liquid water stuck to their surfaces, which is often bad. The surface ofice can also trap some of your cocktail so that it never makes it into your glass. Let’slook at these three issues—surface area and chilling rate, surface area and trappedwater, surface area and trapped cocktail—one at a time.

SURFACE AREA AND RATE OF CHILLINGIce melts at its surface, so increasing the surface area increases the melting area andtherefore the rate at which that ice can melt. Increasing the rate at which ice meltsincreases the rate at which it chills. But the surface area of the ice isn’t the only factor.The surface area of the cocktail is important, too. A block of ice sitting still in acocktail doesn’t melt very fast. Stirring or shaking a cocktail brings fresh liquid intocontact with the ice, essentially increasing the surface area of the cocktail and thus therate at which it chills. The faster the drink moves, the faster the drink can chill.

As important as the rate at which the cocktail flows over the ice is the rate atwhich melted water leaves the surface of the ice. Rapid mixing of cold meltwater is acocktail’s main speed chiller. Plastic bags full of ice cubes and those blue gel packsyou store in your freezer can’t chill a drink nearly as fast as a good ol’ ice cube,because their meltwater doesn’t mix with the cocktail. Nor can ice cubes in plasticbags chill cocktails below 0°C—you don’t get the entropy gain from melting into thealcohol. Even extremely cold things like blocks of steel stored in liquid nitrogen don’tchill as fast as melting ice cubes.

Ice is fantastic.

SUPERCHILLED ICEA counterintuitive fact: colder ice chills more slowly than warmer ice. If you shake with ice that is well belowthe freezing point, it will actually chill more slowly than ice at 0°. The surface of very cold ice doesn’t meltright away. Instead, the energy that the ice absorbs from the drink is used to heat up the ice cube to thefreezing point. After the ice warms up and starts melting, the chilling rate increases. The supercold ice willeventually make your drink colder with less dilution than tempered ice will, but unless the superchilled ice isreally cold, the difference will be small. Let’s say you start with ice that is −1°C. Heating a gram of −1°C iceup to 0°C requires less than half a calorie—less than half the amount it takes to chill a gram of water 1°C andless than one 160th the amount it takes to melt 1 gram of ice. In other words, the amount of excess chillingenergy stored in 160 grams of ice at −1°C would be provided by melting only one more gram of ice at 0°.Puny difference. Dramatically overchilled ice will dramatically reduce dilution. That isn’t good. It is very rarethat you want dramatically reduced dilution in a shaken drink.

In all likelihood you don’t need to worry about your ice being too cold. Ice is a fairly good conductor of heat—about three and a half times better than water (as long as the water doesn’t cheat by mixing and movingaround). Ice’s good conductivity plus the small amount of energy it takes to heat it up means that ice heats tothe freezing point pretty quickly. If your ice has been out of the freezer for a while, it is probably very close to0°C and you can ignore its actual temperature.

SURFACE AREA AND SURFACE WATERAs ice approaches its melting point, it becomes jewel-like, with liquid watersimmering on its surface. The more surface area your ice has, the more surface waterit carries and the more water you’ll add to your cocktail. Even though the liquid waterstuck to the ice is at 0°C, it isn’t an effective chiller, because it has already melted andrelinquished most of its chilling power. Changing the amount of ice you use changesthe surface area of the ice in contact with the cocktail and therefore the amount ofwater you are adding even before melting starts. In practice it is difficult to control theamount of ice you use, which means your drinks will have inconsistent amounts ofdilution. This effect is magnified when you use ice with a high surface-area-to-volumeratio. When bartenders complain that small or thin varieties of ice (in bar parlance,“shitty” ice) overdilute their drinks, I suspect that they are reacting to the initialdilution they get from their ice’s surface water.

To test this idea I made crushed ice with a very high surface-to-volume ratio(shitty ice) and then spun it in a centrifuge to get rid of the excess water. In thecocktails made with this ice, my final dilutions were the same as those made withlarger ice cubes, when all the drinks were chilled to the same temperature.

The upshot: smaller ice with a large surface area relative to volume area canoverdilute your drinks or make them inconsistent. To remedy this problem, shake office before you use it by putting a strainer over your shaking tin or mixing glass andthrowing the water off the ice. I won’t make you get rid of the water with a saladspinner, but I probably should. If you have access to large ice, make smaller, faster-chilling pieces by cracking the large pieces. The surface of freshly cracked ice doesn’thave as much water on it as ice that has been cracked previously and allowed to sit.

SURFACE AREA AND HOLDBACKThe flip side of the water trapped on the surface of the ice before you chill is thecocktail stuck to your ice after you have chilled. I call this stolen bit of cocktail theholdback, and it can be quite substantial. More ice, smaller ice, and ice with nooksand crannies will increase holdback. To minimize holdback in your drink, make sureto give your chilling vessel a sharp snap with your hand after the last drip pours out ofit. Right the vessel again and strain one last time. Based on tests I’ve done withlackadaisical pouring technique, stirring with crushed ice can hold back between 12and 25 percent of your drink. Stirring with small ice-machine ice can hold backbetween 7 and 9 percent of your drink. Even with lousy pouring technique, stirringwith block ice cut into large rectangles gives you holdback as low as 1 to 4 percent ofyour cocktail. The drain, snap, right, and drain again can knock all these numbersdown to the 1 to 4 percent area, regardless of the ice you use. Proper cocktail pouring

technique is important.

There is a widespread belief that ice should never be used twice. Hogwash. Ifyou are stirring a drink and plan to serve it over ice, you should use the ice you stirredwith, as long as it looks good. The ice you have stirred with is colder than fresh ice (ifyou have stirred the drink below 0°), and the used ice doesn’t have water all over it,but cocktail instead.

MEASURING HOLDBACKTo quantify holdback, I measured the phenomenon in sugar-water-ice mixtures; I don’t have the analyticalequipment required to measure these ingredients plus alcohol. I made solutions that were 10, 20, and 40percent sugar by weight, diluted 90-gram samples by stirring with crushed ice, ice-machine ice, and cut blockice, then measured the weight of the strained liquid on a scale and the final sugar concentration of the liquidwith a refractometer. With that data I could calculate the amount of liquid left behind.

You would expect that holdback would primarily be a function of the surface area of the ice you use, just asdilution rate is, but holdback is more complicated. It is very strongly affected by the shape of the ice’s surfaceas well as the surface area. Block ice with smooth sides has less surface area per gram than ice-machine icedoes, and dilutes and chills more slowly than machine ice does, but it holds back far less cocktail than you’dpredict from surface area alone.

Surprisingly, sugar content did not play a substantial repeatable role in the holdback of drinks.

CHILLING, EQUILIBRIUM, AND ULTIMATE TEMPERATUREWhen we stirred our experimental martini, the temperature initially dropped rapidly.After a while, the temperature plateaued and further chilling was much slower. As thechilling slowed, so did the dilution, and after a couple minutes the drink wasn’tchanging much even though we were constantly stirring. The drink was approaching itsequilibrium chilling point, the freezing point of the cocktail: the point at which theentropy gain from melting is balanced by the heat requirement of melting. You’ll neverreally get to the equilibrium point, because your chilling techniques aren’t rapidenough or efficient enough, but you can get close. Blended drinks come closest, gettingreally dang cold because their chilling is both extremely rapid and extremely efficient.

Before you add wet ice to your drink, snap the water off of it. This technique will prevent the ice’s surfacewater from overdiluting your drink even if you don’t have access to big ice cubes.

Before you reach equilibrium, either you stop chilling by removing the ice fromyour drink, or your chilling rate drops below the rate that heat enters the cocktail fromthe environment because your chilling isn’t efficient enough. At this point your drinkwill get no colder. In fact, it will begin to warm up. How close you get to thetheoretical freezing temperature of your drink depends on your chilling technique. Thedifferent techniques we use for traditional cocktails—stirring, shaking, building, andblending—all have inherent chilling parameters, and these parameters determine thestructure of each drink style.

The Fundamental Law of Traditional CocktailsRemember our definition of traditional cocktails: the only ingredients are liquor,mixers, and ice at 0°C (32°F). The only chilling comes from ice. We will assume thatwhatever mixing cups or shakers we use do not affect dilution and are isolated fromthe rest of the universe—no heat enters or leaves. This kind of assumption, while notstrictly true, gives us useful results. With those givens, you have my FundamentalLaw of Traditional Cocktails:

THERE IS NO CHILLING WITHOUT DILUTION,

AND THERE IS NO DILUTION WITHOUT CHILLING.The two are inextricably linked.

The only reason a cocktail gets diluted is that ice melts and turns into water.Conversely, the only way ice can melt is if it chills your drink. Stupidly simple, but theramifications are deep. The law explains, for instance, why stirred drinks are warmerand less diluted than shaken drinks are, and why traditional cocktail ratios work sowell.

MAKING A DRINK THE SCIENTIFIC WAY: THE MANHATTANStirring a cocktail is a gentle proposition where the only things happening are chillingand dilution, as opposed to shaking, which also adds texture. The Fundamental Law ofCocktails states that chilling and diluting are inextricably linked. Here, as my sonBooker says, is where you should prepare to be amazed. The upshot of that law: aslong as two drinks with the same recipe reach the same temperature, they will bediluted the same amount. Any combination of ice size, stirring rate, and time that endswith the same temperature will make exactly identical drinks! When you are stirring,it doesn’t matter how you get there—just that you know when you’ve arrived. I’llprove it. Let’s make some Manhattans.

Because we are making drinks for science, you will need the same equipment youneeded for the martini experiment, and you may want to enlist the help of a friend.Heck, why not just throw a cocktail party featuring Manhattans? You’ll be making atleast two drinks for the first experiment and three drinks for the second. You cansubstitute any Manhattan variant you wish—or any stirred drink recipe of yourchoosing, should you somehow get sick of Manhattans.

THE MANHATTANThe Manhattan is my all-time favorite stirred drink. While I still enjoy a Manhattanmade with bourbon, my standard Manhattan is made with Rittenhouse Rye. There issomething about the mix of rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters that makes italways appropriate. Fifteen years ago, when rye wasn’t as common as it is now, mostManhattans were made with bourbon instead of rye and used much less vermouth thanis common today. It took the constant effort of the traditional cocktail cognoscenti tobring rye back to its rightful place of prominence at the bar.

Vermouth levels used to be lower partially because people were using bourboninstead of rye for the drink but mostly because people were using lousy vermouth, orworse—lousy old and oxidized vermouth. Common recipes in the early 1990s werethree parts or four parts bourbon to one part vermouth. Nowadays a plethora ofdelicious vermouths is available, and many of us store them properly: refrigerated

with a vacuum stopper. I use Carpano Antica Formula vermouth in this Manhattan, at aratio of 2.25 parts rye to 1 part vermouth. Bitters are, of course, necessary to the drink,and here only Angostura will do—2 dashes to the drink. The standard garnish for theManhattan is a brandied cherry. Unfortunately, I have to omit that step; I becamedeathly allergic to cherries when I turned thirty-one and am now confined to an orangetwist.EXPERIMENT 2

Different Ice, Different Stir, Same ManhattanMAKES TWO 41/3-OUNCE (129-ML) DRINKS AT 27% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 3.3 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.12% ACID

INGREDIENTS FOR 2 DRINKS4 ounces (120 ml) Rittenhouse rye (50% alcohol by volume)A fat 3⁄4 ounces (53 ml) Carpano Antica Formula Vermouth (16.5% alcoholby volume)4 dashes Angostura bitters2 piles of ice of two different sizes (The easiest way to do this is to gather apile of your typical ice and then make another pile of that same ice broken inhalf.)2 brandied cherries or orange twists

EQUIPMENT2 metal shaking tins2 hawthorn or julep strainers2 digital thermometers2 coupe glasses

PROCEDUREMix the rye, vermouth, and bitters together and divide the mix into two equal volumes.Mix it in one batch so the mix will be the same in both drinks. Add the pile of largerice to one shaking tin and the small ice to the other. Using the strainers as covers forthe tins, shake the excess water off the ice. Add the mixed cocktail to the tins and stirthem with the digital thermometers (it is easier if you do one and a friend does theother). Stir the drinks until their digital thermometer reads −2°C and immediatelystrain the drinks into the coupe glasses and add the cherries or orange twists. Try to

get all the cocktail out of the mixing tin. It doesn’t matter how fast or how long eachdrink is stirred so long as the temperature is the same. Amazingly, the drinks will tastethe same, look the same, and have the same wash line (the line in the glass where thedrink hits). The two drinks will in essence be identical. The first time I ran thisexperiment I was astonished that it worked, even though I knew the physics of thesituation guaranteed that it would.

Made according to these instructions, each Manhattan should pick up between 1¼ounces (38 ml) and 1½ ounces (45 ml) of water and have a finished alcohol by volumebetween 27 and 26 percent.

This experiment gives you a good trick to use at home. Bartenders stir drinksnight in and night out. They have perfected their technique like golfers perfect theirswing. While you are learning, your technique might not be so spot-on. If you wantyour stirred drinks to be exactly the same every time, just stir them with a thermometeras you did in the experiment. Stop stirring whenever you hit your preferredtemperature, and the dilution—and thus your drink—will be the same every time.

In photos 1–3, glass mixing cups are used for clarity. You should use metal. 1) Pour the same Manhattanover two different sizes of ice. 2) Stir both with a digital thermometer. 3) When the first drink reaches -2°Cstop stirring it; continue stirring the other to -2°C. 4) Results are identical.

ONE MORE PROOF OF THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW

When bartenders are making a large round of drinks, they want to serve all the drinksat the same time. Some might be shaken, some might be stirred, but they all need to beserved at once. The savvy mixer will not make each drink from start to finish, becausethe first set of drinks would be dying in the glass waiting for the later drinks to becompleted. Instead, assembly-line techniques are the norm. Drinks are left in themixing tin languishing with ice before stirring, or after stirring waiting to be strained.Luckily and surprisingly, this extra contact time with the ice doesn’t hurt your drink aslong as the time is reasonably short (a couple minutes) and the ice you are using isfairly large (not shaved). As I’ve mentioned, stationary ice is not very effective atchilling, so it doesn’t dilute much and doesn’t chill much. I know you probably don’tbelieve me, so try for yourself. This time we will make three drinks; one that has theice sitting in it before it is stirred (“sitting before”), one that has ice sitting in it after itis stirred (“sitting after”), and one that is stirred and poured right away (“normal”).EXPERIMENT 3

Languishing Ice Manhattans

INGREDIENTS FOR 3 DRINKS6 ounces (180 ml) Rittenhouse rye23⁄4 ounces (79 ml) Carpano Antica Formula vermouth6 dashes Angostura bitters3 piles of ice of the same size and type3 brandied cherries or orange twists

EQUIPMENT3 metal shaking tins3 coupe glassesStopwatchMixing spoonHawthorn or julep strainer

PROCEDUREMix the rye, vermouth, and bitters together, then divide the mix into three equalvolumes and add them to your shaking tins. Label the tins “sitting before,” “sittingafter,” and “normal.” Put the coupe glasses behind the tins. Once you start

experimenting with three different samples, it is very easy to mix them up by accident,so don’t get lazy here: label clearly.

Dump a pile of ice into the mix in the “sitting after” tin and a pile of ice into the mix inthe “sitting before” tin. Start the stopwatch. Immediately stir the “sitting after” tin for15 seconds. Try to use a consistent stir—you will need to replicate it two times. Afteryou are done, wait 90 seconds. Your timer should read just over 1 minute 45 seconds.Dump the last pile of ice into the “normal” tin, stir it and the “before” tin for 15seconds, and then strain all three drinks into their coupe glasses. Add the garnishes.

The three drinks should be almost identical. If you run the test only once, you may beable to convince yourself that you like one of the three more than the rest, but if youperform the test multiple times, as I have, you’ll see that any differences between thedrinks are random and nonreplicable.

This experiment still shocks me. Intuitively, it seems unreasonable that letting theice sit in the drink for upward of 2 minutes won’t ruin the drink, but it is true. There ismarginally more dilution in the drinks that have ice sitting in them longer, but thedifference is remarkably negligible.

Even with this knowledge—which should set me free from fretting over myrounds of stirred drinks—I still get physically uncomfortable when I see ice sitting ina stirred drink doing nothing. My heart tells me the drink is dying, even though mybrain knows better. Getting rid of old prejudices can take time.

Although the instructions say to use metal tins, I’m using glass for clarity.

Start with 3 identical undiluted Manhattans labeled as shown.

TIME = 0 SECONDS. Add ice to the “Before” and “After” Manhattans and stir the “After” for 15 seconds.

Time = 15 seconds. Stop stirring. You are going to let the “Before” drink sit with ice before you stir it andyou are going to let the “After” drink sit with ice after you have stirred it.

Wait 90 seconds.

Time = 105 seconds. Add ice to the “Normal” Manhattan and stir both it and the “Before” Manhattansimultaneously.

Stir for 15 seconds.

TIME = 120 SECONDS. Stop stirring and strain all three drinks. They should be identical, even though the“After” drink sat around for 105 seconds after it was stirred, the “Before” drink had ice added 105 secondsbefore stirring, and the “Normal” drink was stirred and served right away.

* If you have small, gas-free ice in the cooler you can pour hot water directly over it in the freezer, without stirring,and making sure it all melts.

Shaken and Stirred, Built and BlendedShaken Drinks: The DaiquiriThe daiquiri is one of my all-time favorite drinks. Its reputation has been slandered bygenerations of careless people slinging Kool-Aid-tasting swill and calling it adaiquiri. The original is a thing of beauty. By the end of this chapter I hope you’ll be aconvert, if you’re not already a believer. Let’s look at shaking and ice before we getinto the specifics of the drink.

Some cocktail neophytes have been led to believe that shaking is a kung fu–style-art whose heights can be scaled only after years of training. Not true. They might alsobelieve, watching some bartenders shake their tins, that proper technique involves anaerobic workout. Also not true. And they may be under the impression that the bestcocktails can be achieved only with the very best ice. (Mostly) not true.

Good news! Any reasonable shaking technique that lasts at least 10 seconds,using almost any kind of ice, can make a delicious and consistent shaken cocktail.

Cocktail shaking is violent. Banging ice rapidly around inside a shaking tin is themost turbulent, efficient, and effective manual chilling/diluting technique we drinkmakers use. Shaking is so efficient, in fact, that cocktails rapidly approach thermalequilibrium inside the shaker. Once equilibrium is reached, very little further chillingor dilution will take place, whether your ice is big or small, whether you continue toshake or don’t. Shaken drinks get colder than and more diluted than the stirredManhattans we tested earlier.

In addition to diluting and chilling, shaking adds texture to a drink in the form oftiny air bubbles. Sometimes you can see these bubbles in the form of foam on the topo f your drink; sometimes you can only see the bubbles when you look under amicroscope. But one thing is certain: without the air bubbles, you do not have a propershaken cocktail. Because those air bubbles don’t last long, the texture of a shakencocktail is fleeting. A shaken cocktail is at its peak the moment it is strained and dies alittle bit each moment it sits around waiting to be consumed—a strong argumentagainst serving shaken drinks in large portions. Keep your guests happy and servesmall shaken cocktails that they can drink in their prime.

MY EARLY THINKING ON THE SCIENCE OF CHILLINGCOCKTAILSIn the early part of this century, the bar world hyperfocused on shaking technique and on the ice used in thetins. In general I am a proponent of such hyperfocus, because I believe that when you pay very closeattention to what you are doing, your results are likely to improve, even when it turns out that your

assumptions are off-base. At the dawn of our millennium, however, bar folk were making completelyoutlandish claims in favor of particular shaking techniques and particular ice cubes. In 2009, Eben Klemm, abartender friend of mine with a mischievous bent, convinced me to cohost a debunking seminar at Tales ofthe Cocktail, the bar industry’s annual booze-soaked convention in New Orleans. The preparation we did forthat seminar, and the follow-up seminars we gave over the next two years, helped me form the tenetspresented in this section.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS FOR THE RIGHTTEXTUREYou cannot make a proper shaken drink with booze and ice alone. Booze won’t holdtexture when shaken. The most common texturizers we use might surprise you: citrusjuices—lemon and lime. You may not think of lemon and lime juices as foampromoters, but just squeeze some lime juice into a glass and then pour seltzer on top ofit to witness the persistent foam it forms. In fact, if you shake a drink with clarifiedlime juice, the result will taste dead and flat next to its unclarified sibling, becauseclarification removes the juice’s foam-enhancing characteristics. Most unclarifiedjuices contain lots of plant cell-wall bits and other plant polysaccharides, like pectin,which add texture to a shaken drink. You don’t need to start with goopy or pulpy juice—just unclarified. Strained citrus juice, for example, works as well as and looksoodles better than unstrained citrus juice. Some juices foam well even when clarified;cabbage juice and cucumber juice come to mind. Each time you take on a new juice,shake it to see how well it holds a foam. Or add a bit to a glass and do the seltzer test;if it foams up, you might have a good candidate for shaken cocktails.

I shook the cocktail on the left with normal lime juice and the cocktail on the right with clarified lime juice.Note the lack of texture on the right.

Milk and cream—and liquors that contain them—make good texturizers,especially in cocktails like the brandy Alexander that do not contain acid. I often useclarified milk (whey) as a texturizer in milk-washed booze (if that holds no meaningfor you now, it will after you read the section on Washing, here). Whey is a versatilecocktail ingredient because it contains powerful foaming proteins but neither looks nortastes milky. Unlike milk, it plays nicely with acidic ingredients. Honey syrup alsocontains proteins that promote foaming in acidic cocktails. But the old-school favoritefor cocktail foaming, over any of these options, is egg white. Egg whites are a proteinpowerhouse and, used properly, can produce powerful and delicious foams oncocktails. To learn more, read the egg-white sidebar.

UPSHOT: Always include foam-enhancing ingredients in shaken drinks.

THE ICE YOU SHAKE WITHOver the years I have run many tests shaking different cocktails with different kinds ofice. I’ve measured the dilution analytically and I’ve done side-by-side taste tests. Theresults are almost always the same: provided you follow a few simple rules, the kind

of ice you use almost never affects dilution. Any ice, from the ¾-inch (20 mm) hollowcubes of hotel dispensers up to the 1¼-inch (30 mm) solid cubes from a Kold-Draftmachine (this range includes almost all the ice you will come across), will dilute yourdrink the same amount, even though these cubes have radically different surface areas.The trick is to make sure you throw the surface water off the cubes before you shake:mix your cocktail in a small mixing tin, then put your ice into the larger tin, cap that tinwith a strainer, and violently flick the tin downward to get rid of excess water. Put theice into the smaller tin and shake.

Ice that is smaller or larger than the range given above will dilute differently.Shaking with crushed ice produces a very cold but way too diluted drink. Shaking witha single ice cube 2 inches (5 cm) square does not dilute nearly as much as shakingwith the same weight in multiple smaller cubes, but it does produce a better-textureddrink than the smaller cubes would—a fact that I denied for years before proving it tomyself definitively. For years I scoffed at the numerous bartenders I heard waxingpoetic on the virtues of shaking with one big cube. One year in front of a largeaudience I ran a test intended to prove that big cubes were all show. I shook withdifferent kinds of ice and dumped the drinks into graduated cylinders to measure theamount of foam the shaking had produced. To my surprise—and embarrassment—thelarge cube had a positive repeatable effect on foam quantity. I don’t know why the bigcube does a better job; it just does. I instantly changed my tune and insisted that allshaken drinks at my bar would henceforth be made with large cubes. But remember,that one big cube does not dilute as much as the smaller cubes do, which isn’t good.The solution is to add a couple smaller ice cubes to your tin along with the big cubebefore shaking. The extra cubes don’t seem to mess with the awesome texturizingeffects of the big cube, and give all the extra dilution you need.

UPSHOT: Unless you have 2-inch (5 cm) ice cubes on hand, it doesn’t matter what kind of ice you use.Shake off the water. If you’ve got the big cubes, shake one big with two little.

EGG WHITESThere are a few things you need to know about egg whites before you use them in cocktails.

Egg whites will not make your cocktail taste weird and eggy.

Adding egg white to a cocktail will not kill the bacteria in the egg white. Depending on the proof of yourcocktail, it can take days or weeks for any salmonella in a contaminated egg to die. If you are concernedabout food safety or have a compromised immune system, use good, in-shell, pasteurized eggs. Thepasteurized stuff sold in cartons is horrible. In my side-by-side egg-white-cocktail taste tests, fresh eggs win,followed closely by in-shell pasteurized eggs and trailed far, far behind by pasteurized egg whites in cartons.Please warn people before you serve them raw eggs—it’s not a choice you should make for someone else.

Freshly cracked egg whites have no off aroma. Some egg whites can develop a strange and unpleasant

aroma (reminds me of wet dog)10 or 15 minutes after being cracked. It is especially evident in cocktails andruins their nose. Luckily, the aroma dissipates after a few hours. So you need to either crack your eggs justbefore you make a drink and don’t let the drink sit around, or crack them several hours in advance and storethem uncovered in the fridge until the odor dissipates. Nothing in between.

Some eggs never develop the dog aroma. I don’t know why.

Many bartenders crack their egg whites in advance and store them in squeeze bottles—a good practice forbusy bars.

To use egg white, first mix all your other cocktail ingredients together—booze, sugar, acid, juice—then addthe egg white. You never want to go the other way around, because very high acid or alcohol levels willcurdle the egg white before you shake it, and curdled egg white is nasty. The very upper limit for the alcoholby volume of a cocktail mixture before you add egg is 26 percent. Any higher and curdling is almostguaranteed. Next you must perform the dry shake, so called because you use no ice. Simply close yourshaker and shake vigorously for 10 seconds or so to break up and disperse the egg white and prefoam yourcocktail. Yes, this step is necessary; I’ve done the side-by-side tests so you don’t have to! Be careful whenyou dry shake—your cocktail shaker might try to push itself apart, because warm drinks don’t suck theshaker shut like cold ones do. After you dry shake, open your tins, add ice, and shake again. Be sure to strainyour egg drinks through a tea strainer. Although the strainer will kill some of your hard-won foam, you wantto be sure to remove any curdled egg white and the chalaza, that unsavory little bump that suspends the eggyolk in the shell.

In addition to foaming, egg whites soften the flavors of oaky and tannic drinks, which is why they work sowell in whiskey sours.

TESTING THE EFFECT OF EGG WHITES ON WHISKEYSOURSLet’s make two different whiskey sours, one with egg white and one without. We will add a bit of extrawater to the eggless whiskey sour so the dilution of the two drinks will be fairly similar. Feel free to omit theextra water, though. The results of the test still stand.

EGGLESS WHISKEY SOURMAKES ONE 61/5-OUNCE (185-ML) DRINK AT 16.2% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.6 G/100ML SUGAR, 0.57% ACID

INGREDIENTS2 ounces (60 ml) bourbon or rye (50% alcohol by volume)Fat 1⁄2 ounce (17.5 ml) freshly strained lemon juice3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) simple syrupShort 3⁄4 ounce (20 ml) filtered waterPinch of salt

PROCEDURE

Combine the ingredients in a shaking tin and shake with copious ice. Strain into achilled coupe glass. Now hurry up and make the next recipe.

HOW TO USE EGG WHITES: 1) After you add the rest of your ingredients to the mixing tin, addyour egg white. 2) Shake like hell without ice. This is called the “dry shake.” Careful, shaking withoutice doesn’t seal your tins.

3) Open your tins; this is what you should see. 4) Add ice and shake. 5) Pour and behold. I’m using ahawthorn strainer with a fine spring. If you don’t have one, pour through a tea strainer.

WHISKEY SOUR WITH EGG WHITEMAKES ONE 63/5-OUNCE (197-ML) DRINK AT 15.2% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.1 G/100ML SUGAR, 0.53% ACID

INGREDIENTS2 ounces (60 ml) bourbon or rye (50% alcohol by volume)Fat 1⁄2 ounce (17.5 ml) freshly strained lemon juice3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) simple syrupPinch of salt1 large egg white (1 ounce or 30 ml)

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients except the egg white in a shaking tin and make surethey are well combined. Add the egg white to the mixture, cover the tin, andshake violently for 8 to 10 seconds, making sure to hold your tins together so youdon’t spill. Open the tins, add copious ice, and shake again for 10 seconds.Immediately strain through a tea strainer into a chilled coupe glass. Observe theglorious foam on this drink. Marvel as it settles into a dense creamy head.

Once you have basked sufficiently in the greatness of the foam and enjoyed itssupremely smooth texture, try to ignore it and just focus on the flavor differencebetween the egg-free and egg-full cocktails. The egg-white cocktail will taste

less oaky and harsh.

The progression of an egg white–containing whiskey sour after it is poured.

YOUR SHAKING TECHNIQUEFrom a technical standpoint, your shaking technique doesn’t matter at all. It’s possibleto shake so languidly that you underdilute, but I’ve almost never seen this happen. Onthe flip side, my tests of a maniacal shake that I dubbed the “crazy monkey” reveal thatgoing bonkers doesn’t decrease final temperature or increase dilution. As long as youshake for between 8 and 12 seconds, your cocktails will be about the same, no matterwhat you do. If you shake for less than 8, you might be underdiluted. If you shake morethan 12, almost nothing additional happens—you are just wasting time and energy.Similarly, in side-by-side tests with different bartenders using the same ingredientsand the same ice, I was not able to detect any appreciable difference in the texture ofdrinks shaken with different styles. None of this stuff matters from a technical point ofview. Shaking technique does matter quite considerably, however, in style points—and style is not to be ignored in the cocktail world.

I shook these cocktails with the ice shown. Look how gorgeous the drink on the left is. A big cube is betterfor shaking.

Different Ice, Different Shaking Styles, Very Little Impact

I fitted a set of shaking tins with a thermocouple to measure temperatures during cocktail shaking. I usedtwo styles of shaking (normal shaking in blue and frenetic shaking in red) and two kinds of ice (1.25 inchcubes shown in solid lines and crappy shell ice in dashed). I tested each combination twice for a total of 8shakes.

In general, smaller ice chills and dilutes slightly faster than larger ice does, and shaking like a lunaticchills and dilutes slightly faster than shaking normally does, but the differences are marginal and not alwayspredictable. Errors of timing, measurement, and—most importantly—the amount of water on the surface ofthe ice before you start shaking can easily outweigh the effects of shaking style and ice type.

At 8 seconds, the temperature spread between all eight shaking runs is only 2.7°C. At 10 seconds only2.3°C. By the time we get to 14 seconds the difference is only 1.2°C.

Notice how flat the chilling curve is after 12 seconds. Almost no further chilling or diluting takes place.

Moral: As long as you shake for at least 10 seconds you will be OK.

While I won’t advise you on style—that you must develop for yourself—I willgive you some advice on using your tins. Always measure your ingredients into thesmall tin, then add the ice to that small tin. Do this and you will never be embarrassedby filling a shaker set with more than it can hold and spilling cocktail everywhere.After the ice is in the small tin, place the large tin over it at a slight angle and give it atap to set and seal the tins together. The angle will make it easier to break the tinsapart later. As you shake, the tins will suck themselves together and will not comeapart . . . but always shake with the small tin pointing toward you, just in case. If theseal fails and you get sprayed with cocktail, hilarity will ensue. If your guest gets

sprayed, arguments might ensue. When it comes time to break the tins apart, push thesmall tin toward the gap between the shakers while you strike the large shaker at thebeginning of the gap with the palm of your hand (this sounds harder than it is).

UPSHOT: Shake the way you like.

AVOID THE SPLASHAdding ice to the drink in the small tin as I recommend may splash cocktail if you aren’t careful. At home youcan avoid the splash by using your fingers to put the ice in, but at the bar this won’t do. Instead, I mix in thesmall tin, scoop ice into the big tin, and pour the mix over that ice. Unlike at home, I’m typically only mixingone or two drinks at a time in the shaker, so overfilling is not a big risk.

STRAINING AND SERVING YOUR DRINKEven though your shaking technique isn’t that important, your straining technique is.Shaking a drink produces lots of tiny ice crystals. If you use large, clear ice, thesecrystals tend to be pebblelike and somewhat regular. If you use ice that shatters or haslots of thin, small edges, you are likely to get crystals of widely varying sizes, withsome shards thrown in. While they are in your shaker these crystals don’t affect yourdilution much, but if they make it into your drink, they melt relatively quickly and messwith your dilution. Many bartenders hate crystals on the top of their drinks. I happen tolike them, in moderation. You can control how many crystals end up in your drinkthrough your straining. Shaken drinks are strained with a hawthorn strainer, a flat platewith a spring attached to it. The bottom of the hawthorn is called the gate, and how youposition the gate relative to the lip of your mixing tin determines how many crystalsyou let through. I advocate using a fully closed gate, which still lets some crystalsthrough. Real crystal haters will pour their cocktail through a tea strainer after usingthe hawthorn. A good middle ground between the standard hawthorn and the hawthornplus tea strainer is the fine-spring hawthorn strainer from Cocktail Kingdom.

UPSHOT: Pay attention to the gate!

WHY YOUR TINS GET SUCKED TOGETHER WHEN YOUSHAKEInitially your tins are held together by the seal you make when you tap them together. This tapping motionforces out some of the air and leaves you with a partial vacuum. The real sucking, however, happens whenyou shake.

Remember that ice expands as it freezes, so as it melts, it contracts. Shaking a cocktail melts a lot of ice. Theair inside your shaking tin, which starts at room temperature, is rapidly chilled during shaking and alsocontracts, as do the liquid contents of the drink. These three contractions cause a pretty strong partial vacuuminside your shaker tins, preventing them from flying apart while you shake.

Putting It All Together: Making Some DaiquirisAt long last, it’s time to learn while shaking some daiquiris. The classic drink is afairly low-alcohol, high-sugar cocktail, lying at one end of the shaken-drink spectrum.The Hemingway Daiquiri is a variant high in alcohol and low in sugar (Hemingwaywas both a diabetic and a booze hound) and thus sits at the opposite end of thisspectrum. If you fix both of these drinks in your mind, you will be able to judge allother shaken sour drinks in between.

CLASSIC DAIQUIRI INGREDIENTSMAKES 51/3-OUNCE (159-ML) DRINK AT 15% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 8.9 G/100 ML SUGAR,0.85% ACID

2 ounces (60 ml) light, clean rum (40% alcohol by volume)3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) simple syrup3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Before dilution this drink has a volume of 105 milliliters, is 22% alcohol by volume,and has 13.5 grams of sugar per 100 ml of fluid and 1.29% acid.

HEMINGWAY DAIQUIRI INGREDIENTSMAKES ONE 54/5-OUNCE (174-ML) DRINK AT 16.5% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 4.2 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.98% ACID

2 ounces (60 ml) light, clean rum (40% alcohol by volume)3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) Luxardo Maraschino (32% alcohol by volume)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained grapefruit juice2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Before dilution this drink has a volume of 112 milliliters, is 25.6% alcohol byvolume, and has a minuscule 6.4 g/100 ml sugar and a whopping 1.52% acid.

PROCEDUREShake the ingredients for both drinks separately as described above for 10 seconds,using normal ice, and strain them into chilled coupe glasses. The Classic Daiquirishould have picked up roughly 55 milliliters of water and now be at 15% alcohol byvolume with 8.9 grams per 100 ml of sugar and 0.84% acid. The Hemingway shouldpick up roughly 60 milliliters of water and have a final alcohol by volume of 16.7%,

with 4.2 grams per 100 ml sugar and 0.99% acid. If you crunch the numbers, bothdrinks were diluted a similar amount on a percentage basis. I have run tests showingthat in general, high-alcohol drinks dilute more on a percentage basis and get colderthan low-alcohol drinks do, although a high-alcohol drink shaken side-by-side with alow-alcohol drink will always have higher alcohol by volume in the end. At the sametime, I have run tests that show that high-sugar drinks dilute more than lower-sugardrinks do on a percentage basis. In the case of the Classic Daiquiri versus theHemingway, these two dilution factors roughly cancel each other out.

Taste them. See what you think. I vastly prefer the Classic Daiquiri, even though it is abit too sweet. When I make it, I just short the simple syrup a bit—use a flat or short ¾ounce of simple and a full ¾ ounce of lime.

For a second experiment, make both drinks again with the same specs. This time shakefor only 5 or 6 seconds. The results should be totally different. Your shaking time wasnot long enough, and your drinks will be underdiluted. The Classic should be almostundrinkably sweet. The Hemingway will be too tart but acceptable. The lesson here:as sugar gets diluted, it attenuates in flavor more rapidly than acid, so high dilutionfavors adding more sugar, or less acid, for a particular flavor profile.

If you are up for a third experiment, make the two drinks again but shake for 20seconds. They will be slightly more diluted than they were with the 10-second shake,but not as much as you’d expect—the last 10 seconds of shaking took place in theshallow part of the chilling curve and very little dilution took place. If there’s anydifference in taste, the Hemingway should taste a bit thin, as its meager sugar petersout even more.

On the right, a Hemingway daiquiri. Standard variety on the left.

Stirred Drinks: Manhattan versus NegroniStirring a drink may seem like a simple task. In fact, it is more difficult to make aconsistent stirred cocktail than almost any other type of cocktail. Stirring is arelatively inefficient chilling technique. It takes a long period of constant stirring foryour drink to approach its minimum possible temperature. In our martini experiment, ittook over 2 minutes of stirring for the temperature and dilution to plateau—way longerthan anyone should stir a drink. The main variables are the size of the ice cubes youuse and how fast and long you stir. Smaller ice has a large surface area, and chills anddilutes quickly. Really fine shaved ice can chill and dilute extremely quickly, gettingdown to near-equilibrium in a few short seconds of flaccid stirring (see the section onBlended Drinks, here)—not ideal for most stirred drinks, which aren’t designed to behighly diluted or overly cold. Conversely, a stirred drink made with giant 2-inch icecubes dilutes and chills very slowly, usually leading to an overly warm, underdiluteddrink. Some bartenders like this style, but I don’t. If I want a low-dilution, merely cooldrink, I’ll order a built drink (see here). Stirred drinks should fall somewhere inbetween these and shaken drinks. The best ice to use for stirred drinks, therefore, ismedium-sized and relatively dry: large cubes that you freshly crack into smaller cubeswith the back of your bar spoon, or regular machine ice from which you shake theexcess water. The size isn’t vitally important, because you can adjust the dilution and

temperature of the drink by how long and how fast you stir. If your ice is on the largeside, you will stir longer or faster to achieve the same result you’ll get with smallerice. Got small ice? Stir less or stir slower.

In real life, you often can’t choose what ice you’ll be working with at any giventime, and you should thus be prepared to adjust your stirring to match your ice. It isn’ta good idea to change your technique; just adjust how long you stir. Practice stirring sothat you can stir two drinks at a time with both hands stirring at the same rate. Try tomake your stirring style consistent. If you are consistent, you can taste the first fewcocktails you make in an evening and adjust how long you stir based on the ice youhave.

I always prefer stirring in stainless steel shaking tins, because they have a verylow thermal mass. It doesn’t take very much ice melting to chill them down. Theydon’t affect the temperature or dilution of your drink. Large glass stirring vessels canbe gorgeous, but they have a huge thermal mass and can change the finishedtemperature of the drink by several degrees—enough to make the drinks seem toowarm when served. You can get around this problem by prechilling all your stirringvessels with ice and water, but don’t bother. Most of my bartenders want to use glass.I tell them that’s fine, so long as they pledge to prechill every single mixing glass withice and water every time they stir a drink, without exception. Metal tends to win out.

Many bartenders add a boatload of ice to their mixing vessels when they arestirring. But if ice doesn’t touch the liquid, it does no good. Some excess ice can behelpful if you think the ice will settle a lot during stirring, but most bartenders use farmore than is necessary. At best, the extra ice is useless; at worst, the extra watercontained on its surface will overdilute the drink. Too little ice is also bad. Tinyamounts of ice don’t have enough chilling power to complete the task and can’t deliverwhat power they have rapidly enough. Ideally, you want the ice to contact the drinkyou are chilling from the bottom of the vessel all the way to the top of the liquid. Toinsure that this happens, you need to add more ice than is strictly necessary, becauseice floats and you need a bit extra on top to weigh the mass of ice down into yourdrink. Any more ice than that is counterproductive, and a pain if you are making drinksat home, where your supply of ice is usually limited.

Remember, stirring drinks is a game of repeatability. Develop a stirring style andremain consistent and your drinks will remain consistent. The essence of stirring ispure dilution and chilling—no texture development, no aeration. Because stirreddrinks aren’t aerated, they can look amazingly clear. I love that clarity and don’t wantto add anything to my stirred cocktails to ruin it. Stirred drinks are relatively boozy(our Manhattan was 26 percent alcohol). The high booze level of the finished cocktailsis why most stirred drinks tend to be very spirit-forward, not light and refreshing.

Refreshing is hard to achieve at 26 percent alcohol by volume.

SERVING STIRRED DRINKS: UP OR ON THE ROCK(S)? THENEGRONI

The eternal question: Do you want your Negroni up or on the rocks?

Years ago when I saw someone order a Negroni, I could safely assume that he or sheworked in the food industry. Chefs and bartenders have always loved them. Noweverybody seems to know how good they are. The classic recipe, to which I adhere, isequal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth. Modern bartenders often shift theproportion of gin upward, leaving the one-to-one correspondence between vermouthand Campari inviolate. This makes an acceptable Negroni. Some people swapCampari with Aperol. This too makes a decent Negroni. Some people add a splash ofcitrus juice or a bit of soda water to the classic drink—not my cup of tea, but itdoesn’t taste bad. The Negroni tastes good with normal dilution and tastes good withextra dilution. It is good carbonated. Even though the flavors of a Negroni are

distinctive, rich, and complex, its basic structure can be beaten around and contortedinto dozens of variants that all taste good and retain an essential Negroniness.

Even if you follow the classic Negroni recipe, which I wholeheartedlyrecommend, you still have one final decision to make: Do you serve it up or on therocks?

There are two reasons to serve a drink up. One: up drinks are very elegant. Two:you might not want a stirred drink to pick up dilution as the ice melts. Martinis, forexample, should always be served up, but they get warm if not drunk with celerity, andmartinis don’t taste good warm. There are two non-rocks solutions to the warmingproblem: drink faster or serve smaller portions. Responsibility dictates that Irecommend the latter course. There was a regrettable trend years ago to makecocktails big simply because people associated small drinks with getting ripped off. Iassociate warm martinis with sadness.

There are four good reasons to serve a drink on the rocks: you want the drink tochange over time as it waters down; the drink is otherwise likely to linger in the glassand get too warm to be enjoyable; you find the drink too alcoholic and prefer the extrabit of instant dilution that freshly tempered ice brings from the water clinging to itssurface (though you could just stir more to solve this problem); or you like the way adrink looks on ice. Use those reasons as your guide and you will rarely go wrong.Negronis and other drinks that can tolerate a wide range of dilutions do just fine on therocks. Many people can’t tolerate a Negroni after it starts to warm up. If a drink can’ttolerate watering, like a martini, serve smaller portions up, and don’t let them sitaround.

When I serve a drink on the rocks, I actually serve it on the rock—a single largecube, inefficient enough not to dilute my drink too quickly but efficient enough to keepit pleasantly cool.

HOW COLD IS TOO COLD? MANHATTANS VERSUSNEGRONISTemperature dramatically affects the way a drink tastes. Some drinks completely fallapart when they are chilled too much, including most drinks with aged and oakedspirits, like the Manhattan. Other drinks can be chilled quite deeply without losingtheir appeal but go out of whack when they get too warm, like the Negroni. In this laststirring experiment, you’ll make two Negronis and two Manhattans at different initialtemperatures and compare them as they warm up.

INGREDIENTS FOR 2 DRINKS OF EACH TYPEMANHATTANS

MAKES TWO 41/3–OUNCE (129-ML) DRINKS AT 27% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 3.4 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.12% ACID

4 ounces (120 ml) Rittenhouse rye (50% alcohol by volume)Fat 3⁄4 ounces (53 ml) fine sweet vermouth (16.5% alcohol by volume)4 dashes Angostura bitters2 brandied cherries or orange twists

NEGRONISMAKES TWO 41/4-OUNCE (127-ML) DRINKS AT 27% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 9.4 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.14% ACID

2 ounces (60 ml) gin2 ounces (60 ml) Campari2 ounces (60 ml) sweet vermouth2 orange twists

EQUIPMENT4 metal shaking tins4 piles of ice2 hawthorn or julep strainers4 coupe glassesFreezer

PROCEDUREMix the rye, vermouth, and bitters together, then divide the mix into two equalvolumes. Do the same with the gin, Campari and vermouth. Stir one of the Manhattansand one of the Negronis for about 15 seconds with similar quantities of ice, strainthem into covered containers, and carefully place them and the coupe glasses into thefreezer for 1 hour, during which time their temperature should drop by 5° or 10° C.Now stir the second Manhattan and the second Negroni, strain them into coupes, pullthe first two coupes out of the freezer, and give all four drinks their garnishes. Tastethem. At this point, both Negronis should taste great: they are both in their primeserving zone. The Manhattans should be a different story. The fresh one should beround and inviting. The one from the freezer should, by comparison, taste flat andclosed, with too much oak. Keep tasting over the next 20 minutes or so. You willnotice that as they warm up, the freezer Manhattan becomes your favorite Manhattan,while the “fresh” one remains a decent-tasting drink. The freezer Negroni will remain

a good drink, while the fresh one will become increasingly difficult to drink.

UPSHOT: Temperature is an important ingredient in your drinks, and colder isn’t necessarily better. Almostall stirred drinks are in their prime between −5°C (23°F) and −1°C (30°F), while some drinks can stand beingwarmer and some colder.

After you stir a Negroni and a Manhattan, put them in the freezer for a couple hours. Then taste them next tothe same drinks, but just stirred. Keep tasting all four as they warm up. This will give you an idea of howdifferent drinks respond to temperature changes.

Built Drinks: The Old-FashionedYou make a built drink by pouring it over ice in its serving glass and giving it a quickstir. These are the least-diluted cocktails. The old-fashioned is the prototypical builtdrink, a simple concoction of whiskey, bitters, and sugar garnished with a twist. Likemany simple things, the old-fashioned is a study in nuance. With so few ingredients,each one makes a big impact. Order up an old-fashioned and you’ll have a goodindication of your barkeep’s sensibilities. (For a history of the old-fashioned, andsome lengthy arguments about its proper contents, see Further Reading, here.)

The best way to make an old-fashioned is not necessarily the way that’s mostoriginal or “authentic” but rather the way you like it best. I use simple syrup instead ofgranulated sugar—anathema to many. The only old-fashioned rule you must adhere to:produce a minimally diluted sipping drink that isn’t too sweet and that tastes heavilyof its base spirit. While I’m all for doing what makes you happy, don’t put smashedfruit into the bottom of your drink and call it an old-fashioned. Smash your fruit andname the drink something else! Let us proceed with a variant I particularly enjoy.

Building the Cliff Old-FashionedThe Cliff Old-Fashioned is named for my friend Clifford Guilibert. Cliff and I weremaking coriander soda for an event. Coriander soda is similar to ginger ale, refreshingand spicy, giving a hint of warmth to the back of the throat. After making a batch ofsyrup for the soda, Cliff suggested we use it in an old-fashioned. Brilliant idea!

THE DRINK

INGREDIENTSMAKES ONE 3-OUNCE (90-ML) DRINK AT 32% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.7 G/100 ML SUGAR,0% ACID

One 2-inch-by-2-inch clear ice cube2 dashes Angostura bitters2 ounces (60 ml) Elijah Craig 12-year bourbon (47% alcohol by volume)You can use the bourbon of your choice, but choose one with lots ofbackbone that isn’t too expensive. If you are made of cash, use anything youwant. The best Cliff Old-Fashioned I ever made was for a charity eventusing Hibiki 12-year-old Japanese whiskey. We made two hundred of themthat night. At $70 for a 750 ml bottle, those were some spendy drinks, but Iwasn’t paying.

3⁄8 ounce (11 ml) Coriander Syrup (recipe follows) The syrup is thenontraditional aspect of this old-fashioned. You could use regular 1:1simple syrup to make a more typical version. Many purists use granulated orcubed sugar and crush the sugar with the bitters—they like the graininess,and the fact that the sugar level evolves over time. I don’t.Orange twist

EQUIPMENTOne double old-fashioned glass, at room temperatureStraw or short mixing rod (optional)

PROCEDURE FOR A SIMPLE DRINK IN EXCRUCIATING DETAILI don’t build old-fashioneds in chilled glasses. An unchilled glass represents arelatively large thermal mass at room temperature. When you make a drink in a glassat room temperature, you have to melt a good bit of ice to chill the glass down to thetemperature of the drink. This extra bit of melting adds to the initial dilution of thedrink, which I like. You can overcome this by stirring the drink more after you build it,but then the initial drink will be colder, which I don’t like. Also, while chilled glasseslook great when they are fresh, they attract condensation and don’t look good on adrink like the old-fashioned, which is meant to be sipped.

Fine points like this—whether to chill a glass or not—are all a matter of personalpreference. Chill your glasses or don’t, but understand the consequences.

Some bartenders build their drink directly into the glass before they add the rock,allowing them to stir the ingredients with a spoon to mix without diluting. If you workthis way, you should use the time-honored practice of adding ingredients fromcheapest to most expensive. Adding the cheap stuff first means you don’t throw awaythe good stuff if you make a mistake while you are measuring. Almost all professionalswork this way, even though they rarely make mistakes while jiggering.

The disadvantage of adding the ice last: you have to get a large, ungainly rock into theglass smoothly without splashing, and you have to know in advance that your rock is agood partner for your glass. I prefer to add the rock to the glass before the liquid so Ican be certain the rock looks good in the glass. Your large, hand-cut ice cube shouldbe given due respect. Put the ice cube into your double old-fashioned glass. Make surethe ice fits in the glass and reaches to the bottom. A rock that doesn’t touch the bottomof the glass is an abomination. If the ice doesn’t fit properly, spin it with a spoon, andthe corners should melt, allowing the ice to reach the bottom. If the cube is really toobig, knock the corners off with a knife first.

If you work this way—ice first—you have two drink-building options: build the drinkin a mixing tin and stir to incorporate the ingredients before pouring them over therock, or build the drink directly on the rock. Although the mixing glass is undoubtedlysuperior from a technical point of view, I actually prefer to build over the rock—it’sjust an aesthetically enjoyable process. Be sure not to splash the ingredients on therock; that looks foolish. Work in this order: 2 dashes of bitters, then whiskey, thenCoriander Syrup; you put the least dense ingredient in first so the denser ones willauto-mix when they pass through them. Stir the drink for about 5 seconds, then express(that is, quickly wring) the orange rind over the top of the drink and wipe the rim ofthe glass with it. Drop the twist into the drink if you want to continue adding aromawhile you’re drinking. It is shocking how much a difference adding versus discardingthe peel makes; experiment side-by-side to see for yourself. Do not underestimate theeffect of the twist. Try to make all your peels identical and try to express them thesame way, so your drinks are consistent over time.

BUILDING AN OLD-FASHIONED: 1) If your ice doesn’t fit your glass just spin it in. 2) A rock in an un-chilled glass. 3) Dash in the bitters. 4) Add the base spirit. 5) Add the syrup. 6) Give a brief stir. 7) Expressthe orange peel over the drink. 8) Hold the peel stationary against the inside rim of the glass, then suavelyrotate the glass against the peel and release.

HERE IS THE CORIANDER SYRUP RECIPE:

INGREDIENTS125 grams coriander seeds, preferably with a fresh, citrusy aroma (for sodasyrup, reduce to 100 grams)550 grams filtered water500 grams granulated sugar5 grams salt10 grams crushed red pepper

PROCEDUREBlend the coriander seeds and water in a blender for several seconds until the seedsare well broken. Transfer the mixture to a saucepan, add the sugar and salt, and heatover medium heat until it is simmering. Stir in the crushed red pepper. Turn off theheat and keep tasting until the spiciness from the pepper becomes apparent at the backof your throat when you taste the syrup. (It is impossible to quantify this part of therecipe because batches of crushed red pepper vary so widely.) Quickly strain themixture through a coarse strainer to prevent further infusion, then pass it through amuslin cloth or fine chinois.

To use this syrup for soda, make the version with slightly less coriander (unless youwant a version with as much punch as a ginger beer) and use 1 part syrup to 4 partswater before carbonating (or use 4 parts soda water). Garnish with lime or,preferably, clarified lime juice (see here).

Properly made, this syrup should have a Brix of 50, meaning it should be 50 percentsugar by weight, the same as regular simple syrup. The extra 50 grams of water in therecipe are absorbed by the coriander seed. At the bar we use a refractometer tocorrect the sugar level.

MAKING CORIANDER SYRUP: 1) Blend the coriander and water. 2) Add the blended mix to a pot withsugar and 3) heat to a simmer. 4) Add crushed red pepper and keep tasting for adequate spiciness. 5)Quickly strain the syrup. I use two strainers—coarse inside of fine. 6) The finished product.

The last decision you need to make is whether to put a stir rod in the drink. Thestir rod lets your guest add extra dilution quickly if he or she desires. Bars often usestraws for stir rods because they are cheap, not because they want you to drink throughthem. If you go for the rod, avoid straws! They constantly move around and threateneyes. Use the glass or metal variety, and always give your drinker a napkin on whichto place it when it’s no longer useful.

Made according to my instructions, the Cliff Old-Fashioned should have avolume of 3 ounces (90 ml). Of that 3 ounces, 5⁄8 ounce (19 ml, or 20%) will be waterfrom melted ice dilution. The alcohol by volume as served will be roughly 31%—inother words, stiff.

Take a sip. The drink should be cool but not frigid. A frigid old-fashioned losesits character. Let the drink sit and observe it without touching. After a while youshould see a layer of watery liquid forming around the large ice cube. Notice there isvery little mixing of the meltwater with the drink, and all changes happen slowly. Givea slight swirl to the glass to mix the meltwater with the cocktail and sip again to tastethe difference. The Cliff should be cooler now and not as intense because of the addeddilution, but it will still be balanced. If you constantly swirl the glass, the ice will meltmuch faster, as fresh meltwater is transported away from the cube and a fresh layer ofalcohol is presented to the cube. Don’t overswirl: you want slow change, which iswhy you need a big ice cube and a lot of time. Let the drink rest a couple of minutesbetween sips so you can see how it evolves over time. That’s the point of thisexperiment (one you will likely want to repeat): to see how a drink can stay balancedfor a long time over a range of temperatures and dilutions. A good old-fashioned madewith one big ice cube will be pleasurable for at least 20 minutes as it slowly watersdown.

Remember, the essence of any built drink is slow change over time. Built drinksshould start really boozy—they are sipping drinks, not pounders. After they sit awhileand become more watered down, they become more refreshing and whet the palate foranother round. Keeping in mind that built drinks must stay balanced over a large rangeof dilutions, we can lay out some simple rules that will help you evaluate recipes anddevise your own:

• Choose liquors that taste good over a wide range of dilutions. Somespirits are too rough to function well when they aren’t diluted a lot; these arenot good candidates for built drinks. Other liquors taste great out of thebottle but fall apart when diluted past a certain point; avoid them.• Avoid acids. The flavors and tartness of acidic ingredients such as lemonand lime do not maintain their balance when they are diluted. A properlybalanced mix of ethanol and sugar can stay in harmony as water is added ortaken away, but acid doesn’t work that way. Acids used for tartness can beproperly used only in drinks with a fixed dilution.• Brighten a built drink with essential oils instead. Lemon, orange, andgrapefruit twists work well.• Take advantage of bitters. Bitters are designed to taste good over anabsurd range of dilutions and to join the other flavors of the cocktailtogether without overpowering them.• Take the time to make big ice cubes. If you have a lot of time and energy,make or buy fancy clear presentation cubes.

Blended Drinks and Shaved Drinks: The MargaritaI know, I know. A proper margarita is a shaken cocktail served up in a coupe with orwithout a rim of salt . . . but many people enjoy a blender margarita, including me. Aproperly made blended drink is a wondrous thing. And yes, there is a trick to them.

A blender full of ice is an extremely efficient chilling machine. It will get yourdrink colder and more diluted more quickly than almost any other technology.Blenders break ice into very fine particles, increasing the surface area tremendously,and they spin very fast, providing large movement of cocktail across the ice. I don’tuse blenders at the bar because they are loud. I use something better: an ice shaver.Like the blender, an ice shaver will produce very fine ice crystals. Unlike a blender,the ice shaver doesn’t agitate your drink. With a little stirring, shaved-ice drinks arealmost identical to blended drinks in terms of dilution and chilling. While blenders,especially inexpensive ones, tend to leave unblended chunks of ice in your drink, theice shaver makes beautifully uniform pieces. Manual cast-iron ice shavers like the oneI use are blessedly silent and pleasing to look at. That said, blenders work fine athome, so don’t feel compelled to give up counter space to a shaver unless you havemore space than you know what to do with. Shaved-ice and blender recipes can beswapped back and forth.

Shaken drink recipes cannot be used directly in a blender. Blend a standardshaken recipe and the result will be unbalanced—overtart, undersweet, andoverdiluted. You can balance a drink recipe for a blender by adding more sugar andless acid. Fixing the dilution is more difficult. Most shaken drink recipes just have toomuch liquid in them to blend well. What to do? Reduce the liquid!

THE SHAKEN MARGARITA, THE BLENDER MARGARITA,AND THE GENERIC BLENDER SOUR

The Shaken MargaritaMAKES ONE 59/10-OUNCE (178-ML) DRINK AT 18.5% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 6.0 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.76% ACID

INGREDIENTS2 ounces (60 ml) tequila (40% alcohol by volume)3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) Cointreau3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) simple syrup

5 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

PROCEDUREShake the ingredients together, strain into a glass with or without a salt rim accordingto your preference, and drink.

The amount of liquid in this recipe is 3¾ ounces (112.5 ml). When you shake thatmargarita, it will probably pick up a total of around 2 ounces (60 ml) of water to makea drink a little under 6 ounces (178 ml) with an alcohol by volume of roughly 19%. Ifyou blended that drink and were able to remove the ice crystals, you would see that itpicked up closer to 3 ounces (90 ml) of water—too much. Make one in a blender bycombining the above ingredients with about 5 ounces (150 g) of ice and you’ll seewhat I mean. Here is a simple blender variant.

BLENDERS: BEHIND THE POWER CURVEEven without liquor, spinning blender blades melt ice via friction. (I actually use my blender as a heater whenI am clarifying juices.) How much ice they melt depends on how powerful your blender is and the volume ofcocktail you are blending. Below a certain volume, blenders can’t effectively add energy to the cocktail.Adding more volume at this stage increases the amount of ice you melt per milliliter of cocktail per second. Ata certain point, the blender is adding the maximum amount of frictional energy possible per milliliter ofcocktail. Increasing the volume further decreases the amount of ice the blades are melting per milliliter ofcocktail per second. I use a Vita-Prep, a very powerful blender. On full power, with a 180-gram (6 ounce)load of ice and cocktail, it will melt 0.0007 grams of ice per second per gram load, or 1.9 milliliters of extradilution in the cocktail after 15 seconds of blending, which is minimal. By contrast, the Vita-Prep on full powerwith a 500-gram load melts 0.029 g/g/sec—four times more. That adds up to almost 8 milliliters extra dilutionper cocktail for a 15-second blend—not minimal. By the time the blended load is a full liter, the Vita-Prep ismelting 0.0016 g/g/sec, or 4.3 milliliters per cocktail per 15-second blend. The upshot? Don’t blend too long.Just long enough to get a good texture.

USING THE ICE SHAVERIce shavers come in many varieties. Anything that will produce good-textured shaved ice will work, includingmy kids’ Snoopy Sno-Cone maker. I favor machines that shave ice off one large block; they produce a veryconsistent product and are easy to use. When we make shaved-ice drinks at the bar, we shave the ice toorder into 5-ounce coupe glasses. To get the dilution right consistently, do the following:

• Divide your drink recipe into two roughly equal volumes. Add half to the coupe. You need to melt some ofthe ice right away as it falls into the booze for the presentation to work properly.

• Shave ice into the coupe until a beautiful mountain of ice domes over the top of the glass. You will addroughly 70 grams.

• Put the coupe in front of the customer and pour the remaining half of the drink over the ice. The ice shouldmelt almost instantly, and the level of the drink should be almost at the rim of the coupe.

• Give the drink a gentle stir with a bar spoon to finish the chilling and thoroughly mix the ingredients. Someice will be present, but most will be melted.

Shaving ice into a coupe glass. Note that there is already some liquid in the coupe, which melts the iceimmediately. A dry coupe couldn’t hold enough shaved ice to make the drink.

POURING A SHAVED ICE DRINK: THE MARG

POURING A SHAVED ICE DRINK: The Marg.

Blender MargMAKES ONE 51/3-OUNCE (158-ML) DRINK AT 17.2% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.9 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.57% ACID

INGREDIENTS1 ounce (30 ml) Cointreau (Yep, you read right: more Cointreau thanmezcal.)3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) La Puritita mezcal. (A robust blanco mezcal is requiredfor this drink because so little is used. Tequila would be lost. I used a

blanco because I didn’t want any oak in this drink.)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) Yellow Chartreuse (Completely untraditional, really good.)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lime juice10 drops Hellfire bitters or spicy nonacidic stuff of your choice5 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of saltAbout 4 ounces (120 grams) ice

PROCEDUREThrow everything into a blender, blend just till the ice is fully crushed, and drink.There should be some ice left over. If there isn’t, you’ve blended too long and thefriction from the blades has led you to overdilute your drink.

This blender margarita has an initial recipe volume of 2¾ ounces (82.5 ml) instead ofthe 3¾ ounces (112.5 ml) of the shaken recipe. It will pick up around 2½ ounces (75ml) of water from the blending, making a drink with a final alcohol by volume ofaround 17.2%. This recipe works because both Cointreau and Yellow Chartreusehave high alcohol and high sugar contents, so the amount of liquid in the recipe islower, even though the alcohol level is the same. The blender recipe therefore has 2¼ounces (67.5 ml) of 40% alcohol-by-volume booze in it and about 12.75 grams ofsugar—the equivalent of a little under ¾ ounce (0.7 ounce, 21 ml) of simple syrup—all with a total liquid volume of only 2¾ ounces (82.5 ml)!

BLENDER MARG

The beauty of this recipe is that it can be generalized. Just keep thealcohol:sugar:acid volume ratio fairly constant. The specs for a generic blender sourare as follows.

Generic Blender Sour

GENERAL INGREDIENTS21⁄4 ounces (67.5 ml) of liquid that contains around 0.9 ounce (27 ml) of pureethanol and 12.75 grams of sugar1⁄2 ounce (30 ml) freshly strained lemon, lime, or other sour juice4 ounces (120 ml) ice2–5 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

SPECIFIC INGREDIENTS

The trick to making blender recipes is to find or make a mixture of liqueurs and spiritsand flavors that add up to give the proper ethanol:sugar:volume ratio. Eighty-proofspirits contain the requisite amount of alcohol per unit volume but contain no sugar.Adding simple syrup throws off the liquid balance. To get the sugar you can use high-alcohol liqueurs, like we did in the margarita, or very high proof spirits, like LemonHart 151-proof rum, or you can sugar your booze.

SUGARED BOOZE INGREDIENTSMAKES 1140 ML (38 OUNCES) LIQUOR AT EITHER 44% OR 35% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME

212 grams superfine sugar (regular granulated sugar is okay but will takelonger to dissolve)1 liter either 80- or 100-proof spirits (40% or 50% alcohol by volume)

PROCEDUREAdd the sugar to the spirits in a covered container and agitate until the sugar iscompletely dissolved. This process will take a while. You can heat the spirits, as longas the liquor is covered so that you don’t evaporate any alcohol. Don’t boil, or yourcontainer will get pressurized and possibly blow up the bottle. Wait for the liquor tocool. You will end up with roughly 1120 ml (37 ounces) of sugared booze. If you areusing liquor that comes in 750 ml bottles, use 159 grams superfine sugar.

• If you started with 100-proof spirits, use 2 ounces (60 ml) per drink. You mightneed a bar spoon of simple syrup, as the sugar in 2 ounces will be a little lessthan what is in the marg. Now add ¼ ounce (7.5 ml) liquid of your choice—orange juice, pomegranate juice, water, whatever—just make sure it isn’t toosugary or boozy.

• If you started with 80-proof spirits, add 2¼ ounces of the sugared booze to theacid and salt. The alcohol level will be slightly low but will work fine. With 80-proof there’s no room for extra ingredients.

EXAMPLE 1:

Rittenhouse Blender SourMAKES ONE 51⁄4-OUNCE (157-ML) DRINK AT 16.7% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.8 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.61% ACID

INGREDIENTS2 ounces (60 ml) sugared Rittenhouse rye (44% alcohol by volume; see

above)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lemon juice1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) freshly strained orange juice4 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt4 ounces (120 grams) ice

PROCEDUREBlend and drink, baby. Blend and drink.

RITTENHOUSE

BLENDER SOUR

EXAMPLE 2:

Blender DaiquiriMAKES ONE 51⁄4-OUNCE (157-ML) DRINK AT 15% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 8.1 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.57% ACID

INGREDIENTS21⁄4 ounces (67.5 ml) sugared Flor de Caña white rum (35% alcohol byvolume, see above)

1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lime juice4 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt4 ounces (120 grams) ice

PROCEDUREBlend, drink, repeat.

Cocktail Calculus: The Inner Workings of RecipesI recently constructed a database of cocktail recipes, including both classics and myown, so I could analyze them for ethanol content, sugar, acidity, and dilution. Eachdrink category—built, stirred, shaken, blended, and carbonated (which we willdiscuss later)—has clear, well-defined relationships between the characteristics,regardless of the flavors in a particular recipe. This might seem obvious, but theimplications are not. I discovered that given a set of ingredients and a style of drink, Ican write a decent recipe without tasting along the way at all. I have tested thisprocess dozens of times, and I am shocked at how close I can get to the desired resultstrictly through applying the math. Bitterness is a bit of a wild card—very hard toquantify. Thank God something is.

I’m not talking about swapping rum for gin or lemon for lime. I’m talking aboutthis: given apple juice, bourbon, Cointreau, and lemons, can I make a recipe with thesame basic profile as a daiquiri by plugging in a few numbers? Yes, I can. It won’ttaste like a daiquiri, but it will have the same feel. I developed several recipes in thisbook mathematically, but I won’t tell you which ones for fear you’ll be prejudicedagainst them.

I don’t really know how I feel about this ability. It’s a little disconcerting. I tellmyself that I still need to understand how flavors work together, I still need a brainand a palate—and that’s true. All the math in the world won’t help you if you can’t putgood flavors together. And the math isn’t always right, either. Some drinks are betterwith more than average sugar or acid, some with less. The math will only give you thebackbone of the drink—its structure. The soul of the drink will be the aromatics andflavors you choose. But the math has been incredibly useful to me for judging existingcocktail recipes and for developing my own.

It is easy to replicate the basic profile of a recipe you like in a new drink so longas you know the alcohol, sugar, and acid contents of your ingredients and targetalcohol, sugar, acid, and dilution numbers for the recipe profile you want to emulate.To that end, my recipes specify alcohol content, sugar content, acidity, and finalbeverage size. To calculate new recipes of your own based on my numbers, you’llneed to be armed with a list of the alcohol, sugar, and acid content of basic ingredientsthat I’ve provided here.

• Ethanol is measured in percentage alcohol by volume.• Sugar is measured in grams per 100 milliliters, abbreviated g/100 ml,which is roughly equivalent to “percentage.” This might seem like a bizarremeasurement, but weight-in-volume measurements like g/100 ml are the only

way to deal with dissolved solids such as sugar that must be measuredvolumetrically.• Acid is quoted as a simple percentage. Although the same solid-in-liquidproblem exists for acid as for sugar, the difference between actualpercentage and grams per 100 ml is very small at the low concentrations ofacid present in drinks (usually roughly an order of magnitude lower than theconcentration of sugar) and percentage numbers are simpler to think about.• Volumes are measured in ounces (remember, 30 milliliters to the ounce inthis book) and milliliters.• Dilution is measured in percentage. If I quote a dilution of 50 percent, thatmeans that every 100 ml of original cocktail recipe will be diluted with 50ml of water from melted ice for a finished drink size of 150 ml. If I quote a25 percent dilution, that means that every 100 ml original cocktail recipeproduces 25 ml of dilution from melted ice for a finished drink size of 125ml.

HOW TEMPERATURE, DILUTION, AND INGREDIENTSWORK TOGETHER

Ethanol: Cocktail styles ordered by alcohol from most boozy to least givesyou this list: built, stirred, shaken, shaken egg white, and blender andcarbonated tied for last. This same order, with the exception of carbonatedand egg-white drinks, sorts cocktails from warmest to coldest. You mightexpect the opposite—drinks with lots of ethanol seem as if they would beserved colder instead of warmer, since chilling is often used as a way tomitigate high alcohol content. When you drink straight shots of vodka, theyare chilled to extremely low temperatures—well below any cocktailtemperature—to kill the sting of the alcohol. But the opposite is true forcocktail recipes. Why? Because of the Fundamental Law of TraditionalCocktails (see here). Making a high ethanol drink means having lessdilution. Since dilution and chilling are linked by the Fundamental Law, thislow dilution corresponds to warmer temperatures. The nature of differentdrink styles is built into the physics of chilling with ice. We feel that high-alcohol built and stirred drinks taste good warmer, and the flavors of fineliquors in those drinks would be ruined by lower temperatures, but it is hardto decipher which came first, our preferences or the physics.

Drinks with higher initial alcohol content will dilute more per unitvolume than drinks with lower initial alcohol content (and they will getcolder as well, by the Fundamental Law). The limiting case is trying to chilla juice with ice (which doesn’t get very diluted) and trying to chill pure

ethanol with ice (which gets very, very diluted). The diluted pure ethanolwill always have a higher alcohol percentage than the diluted water, eventhough it dilutes much more.

Sugar: Remembering that our perception of sweetness is radically dulled bycold, so you would expect sugar levels to be higher in colder shaken drinksthan in warmer stirred drinks to achieve the same sweetness on our palate—and they are. Built drinks, which are warmest, have the least added sugar,but because they have so little dilution, they often end up with more sugarper unit volume than stirred drinks.

Acid: Your perception of acid isn’t affected as much by temperature as yourperception of sugar is, and acid flavor doesn’t attenuate as quickly as sugarduring dilution. Highly diluted cold drinks, like blended drinks, will haveless acid per unit of sugar than warmer, less diluted shaken drinks. Stirreddrinks typically contain less acid than shaken, blender, or carbonated drinks,not because of their temperature or sugar content, but because they are notusually supposed to be tart. Built drinks contain very little or no acid.

Flavor Concentration and Sugar-to-Acid Ratio: Flavor concentration is ameasure of how much sugar and acid are present in a drink relative to itsdilution. It is hard to quantify, because it deals with two differentingredients, sugar and acid. Usually more diluted drinks, such as carbonatedand blended drinks, have an overall lower flavor concentration than higher-alcohol drinks. The ratio of sugar to acid that will achieve the particularbalance of sweet and tart you desire in a recipe will change, as statedabove, depending on a drink’s service temperature and its dilution.

CALCULATING DILUTIONAfter lots of testing, I came up with an equation to estimate dilution from stirring and shaking that takes onlyinitial alcohol content into consideration. It works well for the range of alcohol content in cocktails. Idiscovered that I could safely ignore sugar content. In these equations, alcohol by volume must be input as adecimal (22 percent would be 0.22) and dilution is returned as a decimal percent. I derived these equations bymeasuring a series of cocktails and using Excel to fit a curve to my data.

Dilution of a stirred drink stirred quickly with 120 grams of ¼-inch cubes for 15 seconds:

Dilution ratio = −1.21 × ABV2 + 1.246 × ABV + 0.145

Dilution of a shaken drink shaken with 120 grams of ¼-inch cubes for 10 seconds:

Dilution ratio = 1.567 × ABV2 + 1.742 × ABV + 0.203

STRUCTURE OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF DRINKSThese guidelines for specific drink styles are based on my analysis of forty-fiveclassic cocktails—built, stirred, shaken, and shaken with egg white—and tencarbonated and blender recipes of my own. In the chart here and accompanying recipesheet here you can peruse all the values for yourself. All the numbers represent typicalranges, not hard-and-fast rules, and I ignore outliers in the typical ranges that I present.

BUILT DRINKS: Built drinks are typically almost entirely liquor, so their alcohol byvolume is very dependent on the strength of their base liquor. Because they are sippingdrinks served on a rock, built drinks must taste good over a range of dilutions. Thisrange makes it impossible to come up with a good sugar-to-acid ratio—the properratio would constantly change as dilution changed. As a result, built drinks typicallycontain little or no acid.

Recipe volume: 21⁄3– 2½ ounces (70–75 ml)Initial alcohol by volume: 34–40%Initial sugar and acid content: roughly 9.5 g/100 ml sugar, no acidDilution: roughly 24%Finished drink volume: 29⁄10–31⁄10 ounces (88–93 ml)Finished alcohol by volume: 27–32%Finished sugar and acid content: roughly 7.6 g/100 ml sugar, no acid

STIRRED DRINKS: Stirred drinks usually have some acidity, but are not tart. Theyhave a wider range of alcohol levels than other drinks do. The sixteen drinks Ianalyzed range between 21% and 29%, with one outlier, the widow’s kiss, at 32%.The Negroni is the lowest-alcohol stirred drink. Perhaps that’s why it is so versatile,tolerant of many levels of dilution. The numbers below assume you use a lively 15-second stir with 120 grams of ice that is 1¼ inches on a side.

Recipe volume: 3–31⁄4 ounces (90–97 ml)Initial alcohol by volume: 29–43%Initial sugar and acid content: 5.3–8.0 g/100 ml sugar, 0.15–0.20% acidDilution: 41–49%Finished drink volume: 41⁄3–43⁄4 ounces (130–142 ml)Finished alcohol by volume: 21–29%Finished sugar and acid content: 3.7–5.6 g/100 ml sugar, 0.10–0.14% acid

SHAKEN DRINKS: Shaken drinks are often sour drinks, containing roughly equalparts simple syrup (or its equivalent) and lime or lemon juice (or its equivalent).Simple syrup contains ten times as much sugar per ounce as lime or lemon juice

contains acid per ounce, so most shaken drinks contain about 10 times as much sugaras acid. Finished alcohol levels for shaken drinks float mostly between 15 and 20%.The recipe volumes quoted here are too large to fit in a coupe glass in some cases.Remember that these numbers give you the actual size of the drink you create, not whatis poured into the glass. Once you factor in holdback and loss on pouring, the drink inyour glass might be a quarter-ounce lower—sometimes more. My assumptions arebased on a 10-second shake with 120 grams of 1¼-inch ice cubes.

Recipe volume: 31⁄4–33⁄4 ounces (98–112 ml)Initial alcohol by volume: 23.0–31.5%Initial sugar and acid content: 8.0–13.5 g/100 ml sugar, 1.20–1.40% acidDilution: 51–60%Finished drink volume: 51⁄5–59⁄10 ounces (156–178 ml)Finished alcohol by volume: 15.0–19.7%Finished sugar and acid content: 5.0–8.9 g/100 ml sugar, 0.76–0.94% acid

SHAKEN DRINKS WITH EGG WHITE: A typical large egg white is around 1ounce (30 ml), so drinks shaken with egg white start out an ounce (30 ml) more dilutedthan their shaken siblings. Because they are more diluted, egg-white drinks often havea higher sugar-to-acid ratio than other shaken drinks, although because the drinks aremore diluted, the overall levels of acid and sugar tend to be lower. My assumptionshere are a 10-second dry-shake to mix and froth the egg white into the cocktailfollowed by a 10-second shake with 120 grams of 1¼-inch ice cubes.

Recipe volume: 41⁄3–43⁄4 ounces (130–143 ml)Initial alcohol by volume: 18–23%Initial sugar and acid content: 10.0–13.2 g/100 ml sugar, 0.73–1.00% acidDilution: 46–49%. Notice that these dilution rates are much lower than those ofnormal shaken drinks because of the lower starting alcohol content.Finished drink volume: 62⁄3–7 ounces (198–209 ml)Finished alcohol by volume: 12.1–15.2%Finished sugar and acid content: 6.7–9.0 g/100 ml sugar, 0.49–0.68% acid

BLENDED DRINKS: I analyzed the blended drinks from the previous section of thisbook. Remember, I cheated the laws of dilution slightly by dissolving sugar directlyinto booze to keep the alcohol level fairly high despite massive dilution. Becauseblended drinks are very diluted, they have slightly less acid per unit of sugar than youwould find in a shaken drink. The volumes given here are for the liquid part of thedrink only, not the unmelted ice crystals. They will contain an extra 1½ ounces (45 ml)of unmelted ice crystals when they are poured.

Recipe volume: 3⁄4 ounces (82.5 ml)Initial alcohol by volume: 28.6–32.8%Initial sugar and acid content: 15.0–15.4 g/100 ml sugar, 1.08–1.09% acidDilution: 90%!Finished drink volume: 51⁄4 ounces (157.5 ml) plus an additional 11⁄2 ounces (45ml) ice crystalsFinished alcohol by volume: 15.0–17.2%Finished sugar and acid content: 7.9–8.1 g/100 ml sugar, 0.57% acid

CARBONATED DRINKS: We haven’t discussed carbonation yet, so I’ll leave thedetails for later. I have analyzed seven of my carbonated recipes to give you a cross-section of carbonated drink types. I developed all the higher-alcohol recipes (above16%) years ago. My newer, more evolved recipes tend to float between 14 and 15%.Carbonated cocktails tend to have slightly lower sugar-to-acid ratios than shakendrinks, much like blender and egg-white drinks. Like other highly diluted drinks, theylower overall sugar and acid content as well. Carbonated drinks are diluted beforethey are chilled, so you don’t have before and after numbers to remember.

Recipe volume: 5 ounces (150 ml)Alcohol by volume: 14–16%Sugar and acid content: 5.0–7.5 g/100 ml sugar, 0.38–0.51% acid

COCKTAIL BALANCE AT A GLANCE

SPECIFICATIONS FOR COCKTAIL BALANCE AT A GLANCE CHART, ABOVE

BUILTOLD-FASHIONEDMix volume: 72.6 mlFinished volume: 90 mlStart: 39.8% abv, 9.4 g/100 ml sugar, 0% acidFinish: 32.1% abv, 7.6 g/100 ml sugar, 0% acid2 oz (60 ml) bourbon (47% abv)3⁄8 oz (11 ml) simple syrup2 dashes Angostura bittersBuild over a large rock in an old-fashioned glass with an orange twist.

STIRREDWIDOW’S KISSMix volume: 76.6 mlFinished volume: 113.8 mlStart: 47.9% abv, 5.5 g/100 ml sugar, 0% acidFinish: 32.3% abv, 3.7 g/100 ml sugar, 0% acid2 oz (60 ml) apple brandy (50% abv)1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) Benedictine1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) Yellow Chartreuse2 dashes Angostura bittersStir and serve in a coupe glass.

DE LA LOUISIANEMix volume: 97.4 mlFinished volume: 143.6 mlStart: 43.2% abv, 6.6 g/100 ml sugar, 0.09% acidFinish: 29.3% abv, 4.5 g/100 ml sugar, 0.06% acid2 oz (60 ml) rye (50% abv)1⁄2 oz (15 ml) Benedictine1⁄2 oz (15 ml) sweet vermouth3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters3 dashes Angostura bitters3 dashes absintheStir and serve in a coupe glass with a cherry.

IMPROVED WHISKEY COCKTAILMix volume: 76.6 mlFinished volume: 113 mlStart: 43.2% abv, 9.5 g/100 ml sugar, 0% acidFinish: 29.3% abv, 6.5 g/100 ml sugar, 0% acid2 oz (60 ml) rye (50% abv)1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) Luxardo Maraschino1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) simple syrup2 dashes Angostura bittersStir and serve over a large rock in an absinthe-rinsed old-fashioned glass with alemon twist.

RUSTY NAILMix volume: 75 mlFinished volume: 110.4 mlStart: 42.4% abv, 6 g/100 ml sugar, 0% acidFinish: 28.8% abv, 4.1 g/100 ml sugar, 0% acid2 oz (60 ml) Scotch (43% abv)1⁄2 oz (15 ml) DrambuieStir and serve over a large rock in an old-fashioned glass with a lemon peel.

MANHATTAN WITH RYEMix volume: 88.3 mlFinished volume: 129.2 mlStart: 39.8% abv, 4.9 g/100 ml sugar, 0.18% acidFinish: 27.2% abv, 3.4 g/100 ml sugar, 0.12% acid

2 oz (60 ml) rye (50% abv)0.875 oz (26.66 ml) sweet vermouth2 dashes Angostura bittersStir and serve in a coupe glass with a cherry or orange twist.

BIJOUMix volume: 90.8 mlFinished volume: 132.9 mlStart: 39.6% abv, 13.6 g/100 ml sugar, 0.2% acidFinish: 27.1% abv, 9.3 g/100 ml sugar, 0.14% acid1 oz (30 ml) gin (47.3% abv)1 oz (30 ml) sweet vermouth1 oz (30 ml) Green Chartreuse1 dash orange bittersStir and serve in a coupe glass with a cherry and a twist of lemon.

BROOKLYNMix volume: 97.6 mlFinished volume: 142.3 mlStart: 38.3% abv, 6.1 g/100 ml sugar, 0.09% acidFinish: 26.3% abv, 4.2 g/100 ml sugar, 0.06% acid2 oz (60 ml) rye (50% abv)1⁄2 oz (15.75 ml) Amer Picon1⁄2 oz (14.25 ml) dry vermouth1⁄4 oz (6.75 ml) Luxardo Maraschino1 dash Angostura bittersStir and serve in a coupe glass with a cherry.

VIEUX CARRÉMix volume: 91.6 mlFinished volume: 133.4 mlStart: 37.6% abv, 5.9 g/100 ml sugar, 0.15% acidFinish: 25.9% abv, 4.1 g/100 ml sugar, 0.1% acid1 oz (30 ml) rye (50% abv)1 oz (30 ml) Cognac (41% abv)3⁄4 oz (23.25 ml) sweet vermouth1⁄4 oz (6.75 ml) Benedictine1 dash Angostura bitters1 dash Peychaud’s bitters

Stir and serve over a large rock in an old-fashioned glass.

OLD PALMix volume: 105 mlFinished volume: 152.8 mlStart: 37.5% abv, 5.8 g/100 ml sugar, 0.13% acidFinish: 25.7% abv, 4 g/100 ml sugar, 0.09% acid2 oz (60 ml) rye (50% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Campari3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) dry vermouthStir and serve in a coupe glass.

ROB ROYMix volume: 99.1 mlFinished volume: 144.1 mlStart: 37% abv, 3.7 g/100 ml sugar, 0.14% acidFinish: 25.5% abv, 2.5 g/100 ml sugar, 0.09% acid2.5 oz (75 ml) Scotch (43% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) sweet vermouth2 dashes Angostura bittersStir and serve in a coupe glass with a lemon twist.

BOBBY BURNSMix volume: 90 mlFinished volume: 130.4 mlStart: 36.1% abv, 6 g/100 ml sugar, 0.15% acidFinish: 24.9% abv, 4.2 g/100 ml sugar, 0.1% acid2 oz (60 ml) Scotch (43% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) sweet vermouth1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) BenedictineStir and serve in a coupe glass with a lemon twist.

MANHATTAN WITH BOURBONMix volume: 91.6 mlFinished volume: 132.6 mlStart: 35.7% abv, 5.3 g/100 ml sugar, 0.2% acidFinish: 24.6% abv, 3.7 g/100 ml sugar, 0.14% acid2 oz (60 ml) bourbon (45% abv)1 oz (30 ml) sweet vermouth2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir and serve in a coupe glass with a cherry or orange twist.

MARTINEZMix volume: 98.4 mlFinished volume: 140.8 mlStart: 32.2% abv, 9.5 g/100 ml sugar, 0.18% acidFinish: 22.5% abv, 6.6 g/100 ml sugar, 0.13% acid2 oz (60 ml) Old Tom gin (40% abv)1 oz (30 ml) sweet vermouth1⁄4 oz (6.75 ml) Luxardo Maraschino1 dash Angostura bitters1 dash orange bittersStir and serve in a coupe glass with a lemon twist.

HANKY PANKYMix volume: 94 mlFinished volume: 134.4 mlStart: 32.1% abv, 8 g/100 ml sugar, 0.29% acidFinish: 22.4% abv, 5.6 g/100 ml sugar, 0.2% acid11⁄2 oz (45 ml) sweet vermouth11⁄2 oz (45 ml) gin (47% abv)1 bar spoon Fernet BrancaStir and serve in a coupe glass with an orange twist.

BLACKTHORNMix volume: 91.6 mlFinished volume: 130 mlStart: 30% abv, 8.9 g/100 ml sugar, 0.15% acidFinish: 21.1% abv, 6.3 g/100 ml sugar, 0.1% acid11⁄2 oz (45 ml) Plymouth gin3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) sweet vermouth3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) sloe gin2 dashes orange bittersStir and serve in a coupe glass with an orange twist.

NEGRONIMix volume: 90 mlFinished volume: 127.3 mlStart: 29.3% abv, 13.3 g/100 ml sugar, 0.2% acidFinish: 20.7% abv, 9.4 g/100 ml sugar, 0.14% acid

1 oz (30 ml) sweet vermouth1 oz (30 ml) gin (47.3% abv)1 oz (30 ml) CampariStir and serve in a coupe glass or over a large rock in an old-fashioned glasswith a twist of orange or grapefruit.

SHAKENPEGU CLUBMix volume: 106.6 mlFinished volume: 172 mlStart: 33.8% abv, 6.7 g/100 ml sugar, 1.27% acidFinish: 21% abv, 4.2 g/100 ml sugar, 0.78% acid2 oz (60 ml) gin (47.3% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lime juice3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Curaçao1 dash orange bitters1 dash Angostura bittersShake and serve in a coupe glass with a lime wheel.

BLINKERMix volume: 86.5 mlFinished volume: 140 mlStart: 34.7% abv, 6.7 g/100 ml sugar, 0.62% acidFinish: 21.4% abv, 4.1 g/100 ml sugar, 0.39% acid2 oz (60 ml) rye (50% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) grapefruit juice1 bar spoon raspberry syrupShake and serve in a coupe glass.

BRANDY CRUSTAMix volume: 97.5mlFinished volume: 156.3 mlStart: 32.5% abv, 7.6 g/100 ml sugar, 0.92% acidFinish: 20.2% abv, 4.7 g/100 ml sugar, 1/28% acid2 oz (60 ml) Cognac (41% abv)1⁄2 oz (15 ml) Curaçao1⁄2 oz (15 ml) lemon juice1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) Luxardo MaraschinoShake and serve in a sugar-rimmed coupe glass with a big lemon spiral.

BETWEEN THE SHEETSMix volume: 97.5 mlFinished volume: 156.2 mlStart: 32.2% abv, 7.2 g/100 ml sugar, 0.92% acidFinish: 20.1% abv, 4.5 g/100 ml sugar, 1/28% acid11⁄2 oz (45 ml) Cognac (41% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Curaçao1⁄2 oz (15 ml) white rum (40% abv)1⁄2 oz (15 ml) lemon juiceShake and serve in a coupe glass with a discarded lemon twist.

LAST WORDMix volume: 90.1 mlFinished volume: 144.2 mlStart: 32% abv, 15.4 g/100 ml sugar, 1 1/2% acidFinish: 20% abv, 9.6 g/100 ml sugar, 0.94% acid3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lime juice3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Green Chartreuse3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Luxardo Maraschino3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Plymouth gin2 drops saline solutionShake and serve in a coupe glass.

CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉESMix volume: 105.8 mlFinished volume: 168.8 mlStart: 31.4% abv, 8.3 g/100 ml sugar, 1.28% acidFinish: 19.7% abv, 5.2 g/100 ml sugar, 0.8% acid2 oz (60 ml) Cognac (41% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lemon juice1⁄2 oz (15 ml) Green Chartreuse1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) simple syrup1 dash Angostura bittersShake and serve in a coupe glass with a discarded lemon twist.

SIDECARMix volume: 112.5 mlFinished volume: 178.2 mlStart: 29.9% abv, 9.4 g/100 ml sugar, 1.2% acid

Finish: 18.9% abv, 6 g/100 ml sugar, 0.76% acid2 oz (60 ml) Cognac (41% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Cointreau3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lemon juice1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) simple syrupShake and serve in a coupe glass with a discarded orange twist.

AVIATIONMix volume: 105 mlFinished volume: 166 mlStart: 29.5% abv, 8 g/100 ml sugar, 1.29% acidFinish: 18.7% abv, 5.1 g/100 ml sugar, 0.81% acid2 oz (60 ml) Plymouth gin3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lemon juice1⁄2 oz (15 ml) Luxardo Maraschino1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) crème de violetteShake and serve in a coupe glass.

MARGARITAMix volume: 112.8 mlFinished volume: 178mlStart: 29.3% abv, 9.4 g/100 ml sugar, 1.2% acidFinish: 18.5% abv, 6 g/100 ml sugar, 0.76% acid2 oz (60 ml) blanco tequila (40% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lime juice3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Cointreau1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) simple syrup5 drops saline solutionShake and serve in a coupe glass (salted rim optional).

JACK ROSEMix volume: 105.8 mlFinished volume: 166.6 mlStart: 28.7% abv, 13.5 g/100 ml sugar, 1.28% acidFinish: 18.2% abv, 8.5 g/100 ml sugar, 0.81% acid2 oz (60 ml) apple brandy (50% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Grenadine3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lemon juice1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake and serve in a coupe glass.

CORPSE REVIVER #2Mix volume: 92.5 mlFinished volume: 144.3 mlStart: 27.1% abv, 8.9 g/100 ml sugar, 1.61% acidFinish: 17.4% abv, 5.7 g/100 ml sugar, 1.03% acid3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lemon juice3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) gin (47% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Cointreau3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Lillet Blanc3 dashes absinthe or PernodShake and serve in a coupe glass with a discarded orange twist.

FRESH LIME GIMLETMix volume: 105 mlFinished volume: 163.7 mlStart: 27% abv, 13.5 g/100 ml sugar, 1.29% acidFinish: 17.3% abv, 8.7 g/100 ml sugar, 0.82% acid2 oz (60 ml) gin (47.3% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lime juice3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) simple syrupShake and serve in a coupe glass with a lime wheel.

20TH-CENTURY COCKTAILMix volume: 112.5 mlFinished volume: 175.4 mlStart: 27% abv, 10.1 g/100 ml sugar, 1.32% acidFinish: 17.3% abv, 6.5 g/100 ml sugar, 0.85% acid11⁄2 oz (45 ml) gin (47% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lemon juice3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) white crème de cacao3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Lillet BlancShake and serve in a coupe glass.

BEE’S KNEESMix volume: 105 mlFinished volume: 163.6 mlStart: 26.9% abv, 13.5 g/100 ml sugar, 1.29% acid

Finish: 17.2% abv, 8.7 g/100 ml sugar, 0.83% acid2 oz (60 ml) gin (47% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) honey syrup3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lemon juiceShake and serve in a coupe glass with a lemon wheel.

SOUTHSIDEMix volume: 105 mlFinished volume: 163.6 mlStart: 26.9% abv, 13.5 g/100 ml sugar, 1.29% acidFinish: 17.2% abv, 8.7 g/100 ml sugar, 0.83% acid2 oz (60 ml) gin (47% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lemon juice3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) simple syrupShake with a handful of mint leaves and serve in a coupe glass with mint.

GOLD RUSHMix volume: 105 mlFinished volume: 163.6 mlStart: 26.9% abv, 13.5 g/100 ml sugar, 1.29% acidFinish: 17.2% abv, 8.7 g/100 ml sugar, 0.83% acid2 oz (60 ml) bourbon (47% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lemon juice3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) honey syrupShake and serve over a large rock in an old-fashioned glass.

COSMOPOLITANMix volume: 105 mlFinished volume: 162.5 mlStart: 25.7% abv, 8.4 g/100 ml sugar, 1.63% acidFinish: 16.6% abv, 5.5 g/100 ml sugar, 1.05% acid11⁄2 oz (45 ml) Absolut Citron vodka3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Cointreau3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) cranberry juice1⁄2 oz (15 ml) lime juiceShake and serve in a coupe glass with a discarded (optionally flamed) orangetwist.Note: The fellow who came up with the Cosmo, Toby Cecchini, told me that therecipe above is a bastardized farce. He says the actual recipe is this even more

acidic version:

COSMOPOLITAN TC (NOT CHARTED)Mix volume: 139 mlFinished volume: 215 mlStart: 25.9% abv, 7.2 g/100 ml sugar, 1.85% acidFinish: 16.7% abv, 4.7 g/100 ml sugar, 1.19% acid2 oz (60 ml) Absolut Citron vodka1 oz (30 ml) Cointreau3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lime juice1⁄2 oz (15 ml) cranberry juiceShake and serve in a coupe glass with an orange twist.

BROWN DERBYMix volume: 105 mlFinished volume: 162.5 mlStart: 25.7% abv, 11.8 g/100 ml sugar, 0.69% acidFinish: 16.6% abv, 7.6 g/100 ml sugar, 0.44% acid2 oz (60 ml) bourbon (45% abv)1 oz (30 ml) grapefruit juice1⁄2 oz (15 ml) honey syrupShake and serve in a coupe glass with a discarded grapefruit twist.

HEMINGWAY DAIQUIRIMix volume: 112.6 mlFinished volume: 174.1 mlStart: 25.6% abv, 6.4 g/100 ml sugar, 1 1/22% acidFinish: 16.5% abv, 4.1 g/100 ml sugar, 0.98% acid2 oz (60 ml) white rum (40% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lime juice1⁄2 oz (15 ml) grapefruit juice1⁄2 oz (15 ml) Luxardo Maraschino2 drops saline solutionShake and serve in a coupe glass with a lime wheel.

ALEXANDERMix volume: 97.5 mlFinished volume: 150.4 mlStart: 25.2% abv, 4.7 g/100 ml sugar, 0% acidFinish: 16.4% abv, 3.1 g/100 ml sugar, 0% acid

2 oz (60 ml) Cognac (41% abv)1 oz (30 ml) heavy cream1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) Demerara syrupShake and serve in a coupe glass with grated nutmeg.

BLOOD AND SANDMix volume: 90 mlFinished volume: 137.7 mlStart: 23.9% abv, 12.3 g/100 ml sugar, 0.28% acidFinish: 15.6% abv, 8 g/100 ml sugar, 0.19% acid1 oz (30 ml) Scotch (43% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) Cherry Heering3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) sweet vermouth1⁄2 oz (15 ml) orange juiceShake and serve in a coupe glass with an (optionally flamed) orange twist.

CLASSIC DAIQUIRIMix volume: 105 mlFinished volume: 159.5 mlStart: 22.9% abv, 13.5 g/100 ml sugar, 1.29% acidFinish: 15% abv, 8.9 g/100 ml sugar, 0.85% acid2 oz (60 ml) white rum (40% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lime juice3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) simple syrupShake and serve in a coupe glass.

HONEYSUCKLEMix volume: 105 mlFinished volume: 159.5 mlStart: 22.9% abv, 13.5 g/100 ml sugar, 1.29% acidFinish: 15% abv, 8.9 g/100 ml sugar, 0.85% acid2 oz (60 ml) white rum (40% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lime juice3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) honey syrupShake and serve in a coupe glass with a lime wheel.

DAIQUIRI (MORE LIME)Mix volume: 108 mlFinished volume: 163.4 ml

Start: 22.2% abv, 13.2 g/100 ml sugar, 1.42% acidFinish: 14.7% abv, 8.7 g/100 ml sugar, 0.94% acid2 oz (60 ml) white rum (40% abv)0.875 oz (25.5 ml) lime juice3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) simple syrupShake and serve in a coupe glass.

EGG WHITEWHISKEY SOURMix volume: 130.1 mlFinished volume: 197.9 mlStart: 23.1% abv, 10.9 g/100 ml sugar, 0.81% acidFinish: 15.2% abv, 7.1 g/100 ml sugar, 1/23% acid2 oz (60 ml) rye (50% abv)3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) simple syrup0.625 oz (17.5 ml) lemon juice2 drops saline solution1 oz (30 ml) egg whiteShake without ice to mix and foam egg white, then shake with ice and serve in acoupe glass.

CLOVER CLUBMix volume: 135 mlFinished volume: 201.4 mlStart: 20.3% abv, 10 g/100 ml sugar, 0.73% acidFinish: 13.6% abv, 6.7 g/100 ml sugar, 0.49% acid2 oz (60 ml) Plymouth gin1 oz (30 ml) egg white1⁄2 oz (15 ml) Dolin dry vermouth1⁄2 oz (15 ml) raspberry syrup1⁄2 oz (15 ml) lemon juice1 oz (30 ml) egg whiteShake without ice to mix and foam egg white, then shake with ice and serve in acoupe glass. Garnish with a raspberry.

PINK LADYMix volume: 142.5 mlFinished volume: 209.4 mlStart: 18.3% abv, 13.2 g/100 ml sugar, 0.95% acid

Finish: 12.4% abv, 9 g/100 ml sugar, 0.64% acid11⁄2 oz (45 ml) Plymouth gin1 oz (30 ml) egg white3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lemon juice1⁄2 oz (15 ml) Grenadine1⁄2 oz (15 ml) simple syrup1⁄2 oz (15 ml) Lairds Applejack Bottled in BondShake without ice to mix and foam egg white, then shake with ice and serve in acoupe glass.

PISCO SOURMix volume: 135 mlFinished volume: 197.5 mlStart: 17.8% abv, 11/2 g/100 ml sugar, 1% acidFinish: 12.1% abv, 7.2 g/100 ml sugar, 0.68% acid2 oz (60 ml) pisco (40% abv)1 oz (30 ml) egg white3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) lime juice3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) simple syrupShake without ice to mix and foam egg white, then shake with ice and serve in acoupe glass topped with 3 drops Angostura bitters or Amargo Chuncho.

BLENDEDBLENDER WHISKEY SOURMix volume: 157.7 mlFinished volume: 157.7 mlStart: 16.7% abv, 7.8 g/100 ml sugar, 0.61% acidFinish: 16.7% abv, 7.8 g/100 ml sugar, 0.61% acid2½ oz (75 ml) water2 oz (60 ml) sugared 100-proof rye (44% abv)1⁄2 oz (15 ml) lemon juice1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) orange juice4 drops saline solutionBlend with 120 grams ice, strain out large chunks, and serve in a coupe glass.

BLENDER MARGARITAMix volume: 158 mlFinished volume: 158 mlStart: 17.2% abv, 7.9 g/100 ml sugar, 1.27% acid

Finish: 17.2% abv, 7.9 g/100 ml sugar, 1.27% acid2½ oz (75 ml) water1 oz (30 ml) Cointreau3⁄4 oz (22.5 ml) white mezcal (40% abv)1⁄2 oz (15 ml) Yellow Chartreuse1⁄2 oz (15 ml) lime juice10 drops Hellfire bittersBlend with 120 grams ice, strain out large chunks, and serve in a coupe glass.

BLENDER DAIQUIRIMix volume: 157.7 mlFinished volume: 157.7 mlStart: 15% abv, 8.1 g/100 ml sugar, 1.27% acidFinish: 15% abv, 8.1 g/100 ml sugar, 1.27% acid2½ oz (75 ml) water2¼ oz (67.5 ml) sugared 80-proof rum (35% abv)1⁄2 oz (15 ml) lime juice4 drops saline solutionBlend with 120 grams ice, strain out large chunks, and serve in a coupe glass.

CARBONATEDCHARTRUTHMix volume: 165 mlFinished volume: 165 mlStart: 18% abv, 8.3 g/100 ml sugar, 1.21% acidFinish: 18% abv, 8.3 g/100 ml sugar, 1.21% acid31⁄4 oz (97 ml) water13⁄4 oz (54 ml) Green Chartreuse1⁄2 oz (14 ml) clarified lime juiceChill and carbonate.

GIN AND JUICE, AGAR CLARIFIEDMix volume: 165.1 mlFinished volume: 165.1 mlStart: 16.9% abv, 5 g/100 ml sugar, 1.16% acidFinish: 16.9% abv, 5 g/100 ml sugar, 1.16% acid25⁄8 oz (80 ml) agar-clarified grapefruit juice2 oz (59 ml) gin (47.3% abv)7⁄8 oz (26 ml) water

2 drops saline solutionChill and carbonate.

GIN AND JUICE, CENTRIFUGE CLARIFIEDMix volume: 165 mlFinished volume: 165 mlStart: 15.8% abv, 7.2 g/100 ml sugar, 0.91% acidFinish: 15.8% abv, 7.2 g/100 ml sugar, 0.91% acid17⁄8 oz (55 ml) gin (47.3% abv)17⁄8 oz (55 ml) centrifuge-clarified grapefruit juice13⁄8 oz (42 ml) water3⁄8 oz (10 ml) simple syrup4 dashes champagne acidChill and carbonate.

CARBONATED NEGRONIMix volume: 165.1 mlFinished volume: 165.1 mlStart: 16% abv, 7.3 g/100 ml sugar, 0.38% acidFinish: 16% abv, 7.3 g/100 ml sugar, 0.38% acid21⁄4 oz (67.5 ml) water1 oz (30 ml) sweet vermouth1 oz (30 ml) gin (47.3% abv)1 oz (30 ml) Campari1⁄4 oz (7.5 ml) clarified lime juice or champagne acid2 drops saline solutionChill and carbonate. Serve with a discarded grapefruit twist.

GIN AND TONIC (DRY)Mix volume: 164.6 mlFinished volume: 164.6 mlStart: 15.4% abv, 4.9 g/100 ml sugar, 0.41% acidFinish: 15.4% abv, 4.9 g/100 ml sugar, 0.41% acid7⁄8 oz (87 ml) water13⁄4 oz (53.5 ml) gin (47.3% abv)3⁄8 oz (12.8 ml) Quinine Simple Syrup3⁄8 oz (11 1/4 ml) clarified lime juice2 drops saline solutionChill and carbonate.

CARBONATED WHISKEY SOURMix volume: 162 mlFinished volume: 162 mlStart: 15.2% abv, 7.2 g/100 ml sugar, 0.44% acidFinish: 15.2% abv, 7.2 g/100 ml sugar, 0.44% acid5⁄8 oz (78.75 ml) water13⁄4 oz (52.5 ml) bourbon (47% abv)5⁄8 oz (18.75 ml) simple syrup3⁄8 oz (12 ml) clarified lemon juice2 drops saline solutionChill and carbonate.

CARBONATED MARGARITAMix volume: 165.2 mlFinished volume: 165.2 mlStart: 14.2% abv, 7.1 g/100 ml sugar, 0.44% acidFinish: 14.2% abv, 7.1 g/100 ml sugar, 0.44% acid2½ oz (76 ml) water2 oz (58.5 ml) blanco tequila (40% abv)5⁄8 oz (18.75 ml) simple syrup3⁄8 oz (12 ml) clarified lime juice4 drops saline solutionChill and carbonate.

COCKTAIL INGREDIENT PERCENTAGESNOTE: The alcohol levels that I have listed for commercial spirits are accurate. Because it is difficult tomeasure the sugar levels in any liquor that contains both sugar and alcohol (like Chartreuse), I have relied onpublished sources and educated guesses to provide sugar levels. The figures for acid in wine-based liqueursare likewise educated approximations. My fruit-juice sugar and acid levels are averages supplied by the U.S.government and by commercial growers for standard single-strength (as opposed to concentrated) juices; forthe Wickson apple I used my own refractometer measurements. Of course, the sugar and acidity of fruits willvary wildly. The alcohol levels of modified spirits are as close as I could estimate.

No straight spirits are included in this list. Their alcohol levels are listed on the bottles, and they typicallycontain no sugar and minimal titratable acid, even when aged in oak.

PART 3

New TECHNIQUES and IDEAS

Alternative ChillingReady to move beyond frozen water in your cocktail chilling pursuits? Let’s start withthings you can do in your freezer, and then we will move to liquid nitrogen and dryice.

USING YOUR HOME FREEZER LIKE A COCKTAIL NINJAMy freezer at home hovers around −10.5°F (−23.5°C), a fantastic temperature for mostof my freezer tricks. I have another freezer that stays between −4°F (−20°C) and 0°F(−18°C) at its coldest setting, barely adequate for the recipes you’ll read below. Acouple degrees make a big difference when freezing mixtures of alcohol, sugar, andwater. You should determine how cold your freezer is. To find out, simply put a bottleof straight booze greater than 40 percent alcohol by volume in your freezer and let itsit there overnight. It won’t freeze. Measure the temperature of the liquid with a digitalthermometer. Voilà: your average freezer temperature. If your freezer is too warm, 0°F(−18°C), you probably have it set too high. Turn it down. Colder is better. Your icecream and frozen foods will thank you. I have read a number of sources recommendingthat you keep your freezer temperature on the warm side to conserve energy.Apparently the authors haven’t done their research on the pernicious effects oftemperatures above 0°F (−18°C) on the longevity and quality of frozen foodstuffs.Keeping your freezer warm is penny wise, pound foolish.

SLUSHY SLUSHIn the traditional cocktail section I describe how to make blended drinks with ice—they are liquids with some ice crystals in them. Here we will make slushies. If youwant to replicate a 7-Eleven–style frozen treat, freeze your entire cocktail batch aheadof time in a reusable container (I use plastic quart containers or Ziploc bags,depending on the recipe), minus hyper-perishable ingredients such as lime juice butincluding dilution water, and blend it to serve. Blenders don’t usually do a good jobwith single drinks, so you’ll want to make at least two at a time. The trick here is toget the dilution right. You want to get the finished alcohol by volume below 15.5percent. Go for 14 percent, lower than most shaken drinks. You need to get the alcoholby volume down so that your freezer can do its job and freeze the mixture. Sugarreduces the freezing point of drinks as well, so don’t let it get above 9 grams per 100milliliters. For a drink recipe based on a 2-ounce (60-ml) pour of 40 percent alcohol-by-volume liquor, you’ll need to add about 3½ ounces (105 ml) of water-basedingredients with no more than the equivalent of ¾ ounce (22.5 ml) of simple syrup(about 14 grams of sugar).

LEGIT SLURPEE

It takes a long time to freeze these drinks properly, so make your batch the nightbefore you want to serve it. When you wake up in the morning, look at the cocktail. Ifit doesn’t look like it is freezing nicely, your freezer is probably −4°F (−20°C) orhigher—not cold enough. Don’t despair. You will just need to adjust the technique abit. Three to six hours before you plan to blend the drinks, add the lime juice. Once themix is diluted a bit more, it should freeze properly.

The slushy procedure can be applied to many, many drinks. Here’s a simpledaiquiri to get you started:

Frozen DaiquiriMAKES TWO 53⁄5-OUNCE (169-ML) DRINKS AT 14.2% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 8.4 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.93% ACID

INGREDIENTS

4 ounces (120 ml) white rum (40% alcohol by volume), preferably clean-tasting and cheap, such as Flor de Caña4 ounces (120 ml) filtered water11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) simple syrup4 drops saline or 2 pinches of salt13⁄4 ounces (52.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice

PROCEDUREThe day before you plan to make the drinks, combine the rum, water, simple syrup, andsaline or salt. Pour the mixture into a wide-mouth plastic container or Ziploc bag andfreeze. At drink time, put the daiquiri mix directly from the freezer into a blender, addthe lime juice, blend to a slush, and serve. College students: you’re welcome. Andpace yourselves.

This is the correct texture for a blended drink when it comes out of your freezer.

Frozen daiquiri.

EBONY AND IVORYTwo drinks—one dark, one light—served side by side, living together in perfectharmony. Either drink is also good enough to stand on its own merits as a solo act.

Both drinks are fundamentally frozen vermouth. Ebony is a mixture of Carpanosweet vermouth (if you can’t find Carpano, substitute another fine and sweetvermouth) with a bit of vodka to tone down the sweetness, plus a hint of lemon juice(you won’t need much lemon; vermouths are wine-based and contain acidity already).I like this drink a lot. Even though it’s very cold, the flavor of the vermouth shinesthrough purely without being cloying.

Ivory is based on Dolin Blanc, a sweet white vermouth. It’s also lightened with atouch of vodka, but it’s acidified with lime. It is much brighter and more refreshingthan you expect a vermouth drink to be.

Vermouth oxidizes quickly and badly once diluted, so these drinks must be frozenin Ziploc bags with all the air removed and not in a large container where they can beexposed to a lot of air. Pour the mixes into bags and seal the bags 90 percent of theway across the top. Lay the bags down and push all the air out of them, then pinch thefinal portion of the bag lock shut.

EBONY AND IVORY

EbonyMAKES TWO 44⁄5-OUNCE (145.5-ML) DRINKS AT 14.4% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 8.4 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.74% ACID

INGREDIENTS5 ounces (150 ml) Carpano vermouth (16% alcohol by volume, roughly 16 gsugar/100 ml, roughly 0.6% acidity)11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) vodka (40% alcohol by volume)21⁄2 ounces (75 ml) filtered water4 drops saline solution or 2 pinches of saltFlat 3⁄4 ounce (21 ml) freshly strained lemon juice

PROCEDUREThe day before you plan to make the drinks, combine the vermouth, vodka, water, andsaline or salt. Pour the mixture into a Ziploc bag, exclude all air from the bag, and

freeze. At drink time, put the mix directly from the freezer into a blender, add thelemon juice, blend to a slush, and serve by itself or with Ivory.

Removing air from the Ziploc. Air is bad because it will oxidize your diluted vermouth.

IvoryMAKES TWO 43⁄5-OUNCE (138-ML) DRINKS AT 13.9% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.9 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.81% ACID

INGREDIENTS51⁄2 ounces (165 ml) Dolin Blanc vermouth (16% alcohol by volume, roughly13 g/100 ml sugar, roughly 0.6% acid)1 ounce (30 ml) vodka (40% alcohol by volume)2 ounces (60 ml) filtered water4 drops saline solution or 2 pinches of saltFlat 3⁄4 ounce (21 ml) freshly strained lime juice

PROCEDUREThe day before you plan to make the drinks combine the vermouth, vodka, water, andsaline or salt. Pour the mixture into a Ziploc bag, exclude all air from the bag, andfreeze. At drink time, put the mix directly from the freezer into a blender, add the limejuice, blend to a slush, and serve by itself or with Ebony.

THE JUICE SHAKE

Here is another low-tech trick you can perform with your home freezer: the juiceshake. When someone asks me to develop a recipe that people can make at homewithout fancy equipment, this is one of my go-to techniques.

It is difficult to make balanced cocktails with most juices—they just aren’tconcentrated enough. After you’ve added enough juice to get the flavor right, you can’tafford to dilute the drink further with ice. Apple juice, grapefruit juice, strawberryjuice, and watermelon juice contain too much water to be useful in a cocktail chilledwith ice. The simple chilling solution: make juice ice cubes and shake away.

At first blush, the juice shake couldn’t be much easier. Get a bunch of ice-cubetrays, jigger your juice into the trays, and freeze. When it comes time to make thedrink, jigger your alcohol and any other mixers into a cocktail shaker, add juice cubes,and shake. There is one wrinkle.

When you shake with regular ice, it doesn’t really matter how much ice you add.Shaking will melt roughly the same amount of water no matter how much ice you use(refer back to the Traditional Cocktails section, here, if you forget why this is true).Juice shakes don’t work this way. Juice ice is a combination of sugars, acids, flavors,and water. As you shake, the first part of the juice cubes to melt is richer in sugar,acid, and flavor than the stuff that melts later, so adding too many juice cubes throwsoff the balance of the drink.

The juice shake gets your tins extremely cold.

With the juice shake, you need to add exactly the right number of juice cubes toachieve the flavor you want. Next you’ll practice a technique I call “shaking tocompletion”: shake the drink until the juice cubes have completely disintegrated. Youwill hear the cubes break up in the shaker, and you’ll know you are done when thedrink sounds slushy and the tins are preposterously cold. While this process is more

taxing than a typical shake, it isn’t as difficult as you might think, because frozen juiceis much softer than frozen water.

I use the juice shake to make shaken-sour-style drinks (think daiquiris, whiskeysours, margaritas). Most often these drinks taste best with a final alcohol level of 15.5to 20 percent, a sugar content of 6.5 to 9 percent and a total acidity of 0.84 to 0.88percent. Depending on the recipe you are making and the kind of juice you have, youmay not want all your dilution to come from juice. The drink might taste too juicy. Ifso, just add some regular ice as well. As long as you don’t add too much regular ice,the exact amount you use isn’t important, because the juice ice will melt while you areshaking long before the regular ice will. An ounce give or take is no problem.

You can approximate the juice shake with a blender, using frozen fruit instead offrozen fruit juice. The blender technique is supersimple, and I have to admit that thesedrinks often taste good, but the pectin and other solids in the fruits lend a smoothieliketexture that I find unsatisfying. Don’t let me stop you from blending whole frozen fruit,though it does pain me a little bit. You’ll need to add a bit more frozen fruit than youwould juice, because of the solids—and you’ll also need to add a bit of ice to loosenthe texture and make the drinks more . . . drinkable.

The juice shake makes drinks colder than shaking with plain ice does. Everyonelikes them, and anyone can make them. Here are some suggestions.

Approximating the juice shake with frozen fruit in a blender

Strawberry BanditoTequila and strawberries is unimaginative, I hear you say? Well, it is delicious.Strawberries can vary greatly in sweetness and acidity. You will have to adjust theratios below if your berries (or the juice, if you are buying it premade) are differentfrom mine. If you desire a slushier drink, keep your tequila in the freezer prior toshaking. I make mine with jalapeño-infused tequila, but regular blanco tequila tastesgood as well.MAKES ONE 43⁄5-OUNCE (140-ML) DRINK AT 17.1% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 9.0 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.96% ACID

INGREDIENTS2 ounces (60 ml) strawberry juice (8 g/100 ml sugar, 1.5% acid) (or youcan use 21⁄2 ounces [75 grams] frozen strawberries and 15 grams ice, but youdidn’t hear it from me)2 ounces (60 ml) Jalapeño Tequila, here (40% alcohol by volume)1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) freshly strained lime juiceShort 1⁄2 ounce (12.5 ml) simple syrup2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

PROCEDURESeveral hours before you want to make the drinks, measure two 1-ounce (30-ml) poursof strawberry juice into individual ice-cube trays for every drink you’ll make, andfreeze. This drink has a lot of unfrozen ingredients, so for a colder drink, refrigerateyour tequila, lime juice, and simple syrup before making. At drink time, combine thetequila, lime juice, simple syrup, and saline solution or salt in a mixing tin, add 2strawberry ice cubes, and shake until the ice cubes are fully melted and there are nolarge particles left. Strain using a hawthorn strainer into a chilled coupe glass. Enjoy.

Strawberry juice cubes

STRAWBERRY BANDITO

Shaken DrakeThis drink is a mix of unclarified grapefruit juice and kümmel, the German version ofcaraway liqueur. Kümmel is sweeter than its better-known Scandinavian cousin,aquavit, but not too sweet. Grapefruit and caraway were born to be together. A barspoon of maple syrup rounds out the bitterness of the grapefruit. Even though all threeingredients contain sugar, the result does not taste overly sweet. The bitterness ofgrapefruit requires more than the average amount of salt in this cocktail. If you likesalt-rimmed glasses, they work here. If you cannot find kümmel, substitute aquavit andup the maple syrup slightly.MAKES ONE 43⁄5-OUNCE (139-ML) DRINK AT 15.6% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 10.2 G/100 MLSUGAR, 1.03% ACID

INGREDIENTS2 ounces (60 ml) freshly squeezed and strained grapefruit juice (10.4 g/100ml sugar, 2.4% acid)11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) Helbing Kümmel liqueur (35% alcohol by volume)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) vodka (40% alcohol by volume)1 bar spoon (4 ml) grade B maple syrup (87.5 g/100 ml sugar)5 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

PROCEDURESeveral hours before you want to make the drinks, measure two 1-ounce (30-ml) poursof strained grapefruit juice into individual ice-cube trays for every drink you’ll make,and freeze. At drink time, combine the kümmel, vodka, maple syrup, and salinesolution or salt in a mixing tin, add 2 grapefruit-juice ice cubes, and shake like thedevil until the ice cubes turn to slush and there are no large particles left (30 secondsat least). Your tins will get very cold. Strain using a hawthorn strainer into a chilledcoupe glass.

Shaken Drake with grapefruit-juice cubes in the foreground.

Scotch and CoconutMy friend chef Nils Noren loves the combination of coconut water and Scotch. I stolehis combination for this unusual shaken drink. I use Ardbeg 10 in this recipe, because I

want the smokiness of a peaty Islay Scotch to go with the coconut water. Coconutwater on its own is a bit musky and needs some fruit flavors to round it out, so I addCointreau, which brings both sweetness and the flavor of orange without addingacidity. I rarely like fruit acids with Scotch. Even so, I found this drink needed just askosh of acid, so I added a small amount of lemon juice. After the drink is made, itreceives a twist of orange peel—the oils bring brightness without extra acidity—and astar anise pod. While I normally hate inedible things floating in my drinks, the aromaof star anise marries so well with coconut water that I make an exception here.

Your choice of coconut water is important, because most of the stuff on themarket is pretty bad. Try to get one that hasn’t been pasteurized at high heat. Ideally,make your own. Coconut water for drinking does not come from the hard browncoconuts normally found in the supermarket. Go to an Asian greengrocer and seek outimmature coconuts sold specifically for their water. They are usually beige or whiteand pithy on the outside, having had a portion of their thick husk cut away before sale.Knock two holes in the top of the coconut—one for pouring and one to let in air—andpour out the coconut water. Strain it before use to get out the bits of husk.MAKES ONE 47⁄10-OUNCE (142-ML) DRINK AT 18.6% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 5.9 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.32% ACID

INGREDIENTS21⁄2 ounces (75 ml) fresh coconut water (6.0 g/100 ml sugar)11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) Ardbeg 10-year Scotch (46% alcohol by volume)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) Cointreau (40% alcohol by volume 25 g/100 ml sugar)1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) freshly strained lemon juice2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt1 star anise pod1 orange twist

PROCEDURESeveral hours before you want to make the drinks, measure two 1¼-ounce (37.5-ml)pours of strained fresh coconut water into individual ice-cube trays for every drinkyou’ll make, and freeze. At drink time, combine the Scotch, Cointreau, lemon juice,and saline solution or salt in a mixing tin, add 2 coconut water ice cubes, and shakeuntil the ice cubes turn to slush and there are no large particles left. Your tins will getvery cold. Strain with a hawthorn strainer into a chilled coupe glass. Express theorange twist over the top of the drink, then wipe the rim of the glass with the orangeside of the peel before discarding it. Float the star anise pod on top.

MAKING THE SCOTCH AND COCONUT: 1) Punch two holes in a juice coconut, one for draining andone for air. 2) Drain and strain the coconut water. 3) Pour the coconut water into ice-cube trays and freeze.4) The finished drink ready for its garnish.

STIRRED DRINKS EN MASSEMany drinks that you stir rather than shake you can make in large quantities ahead oftime with no reduction in quality. In fact, you can probably make them better. Shakendrinks can’t be made ahead of time because you actually have to shake them to gettheir characteristic texture. You’ll recall from the traditional cocktail section that

stirring a cocktail does only two things: stirring chills and stirring dilutes. Using yourfreezer, you can easily separate these two actions. You can choose the exact dilutionyou want and chill it to the exact temperature you want. Making drinks ahead of timeand chilling them in the freezer also lets you crank out a lot of really good drinksreally quickly. At the bar I make fully diluted cocktails and chill them to preciseserving temperatures with a fancy freezer. Unfortunately, regular freezers are too coldto store diluted stirred cocktails. First, the freezer will cause your drinks tocrystallize, and second, stirred drinks don’t taste good too cold anyway. The solution:put only the booze in the freezer and dilute with ice water at the last minute.

Let’s revisit the Manhattan. I want you to know how to make lots of Manhattanswith aplomb. One evening years ago my wife and I stopped in at the HowardJohnson’s in Times Square. Whatever for, you ask? Not because we knew JacquesPépin had devised its crispy clam strip recipe after finishing a stint as Charles deGaulle’s personal chef. No, we were drawn in by a vintage hand-lettered sign in thewindow that asked, “May we recommend a pitcher of Manhattans?” Why, yes, youmay! Alas, the waitress stared at us blankly; the sign was a relic from some earlier HoJo golden age, and cocktail pitchers were no longer to be had in 1995. If only they’dhad this recipe.

Manhattans by the PitcherMAKES SEVEN 42⁄5-OUNCE (132-ML) DRINKS (OR ANY MULTIPLE YOU CHOOSE) AT 26%ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 3.2 G/100 ML SUGAR, 0.12% ACID

INGREDIENTS14 ounces (420 ml) Rittenhouse rye (50% alcohol by volume)61⁄4 ounces (187.5 ml) Carpano Antica Formula vermouth (16.5% alcohol byvolume, roughly 16% sugar, 0.6% acid)1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) Angostura bitters101⁄2 ounces (315 ml) ice water (water that has been chilled with ice; don’tadd the ice)Garnish of your choice

EQUIPMENT1 liter plastic soda bottleChilled serving pitcherChilled coupe glasses

PROCEDURECombine the rye, vermouth, and Angostura bitters in the soda bottle. Squeeze theexcess air out of the bottle, cap it, and put it in the freezer for a minimum of 2 hours.You are using the soda bottle to exclude air so the vermouth won’t alter as you storethe drink. Also, even though I don’t love storing liquor in plastic, plastic won’texplode in the freezer like glass will if you make a mistake and overfill a container.

At drink time, combine the cocktail base from the freezer with the ice water in thechilled serving pitcher and stir briefly. If your freezer was roughly −4°F (−20°C), thefinished drink should be around 26°F (−3.3°C), just a bit cooler than you would getfrom stirring. Fill and garnish the coupes and pour Manhattans to your heart’s content.

MAKING MANHATTANS BY THE PITCHER: 1) Put the mix into a plastic bottle and squeeze out the airbefore capping to prevent oxidation. Put the bottle in the freezer. 2) The freezer-cold Manhattan mix. 3)Measure out the ice water. 4) Pour the freezer-cold mix and ice water into a chilled pitcher. 5) Stir. 6) Serve.

BOTTLED COCKTAILS READY TO DRINK,PROFESSIONAL STYLEIf you have an accurate enough freezer, you can make ready-to-drink stirred cocktails in advance, bottlethem, and serve them whenever you want. At the bar we always have stirred-type drinks bottled and ready togo, and the Manhattan is one we are never without. We make batches of thirty drinks using a recipe verysimilar to the Manhattans by the Pitcher recipe, but even simpler:

MAKES 30 41⁄4-OUNCE (136-ML) DRINKS AT 26% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 3.2 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.12% ACID

INGREDIENTSThree 750 ml bottles Rittenhouse ryeOne 1 liter bottle Carpano Antica Formula vermouth1 ounce (30 ml) Angostura bitters1700 ml filtered water

Combine the ingredients and divide among thirty 6.35-ounce (187-ml) champagne-style bottles. Now comesthe hard part. You cannot simply cap the Manhattans, chill them, and hope for the best. The oxygen in the

headspace of the bottle is sufficient to change the flavor of the vermouth within a few hours, as vermouth in adiluted cocktail is horribly unstable. To get around this problem we add a small amount of liquid nitrogen to thebottle after we fill it with cocktail. If you can’t obtain liquid nitrogen it’s okay, your cocktails will just oxidize alittle.

The bottles we use have crown caps like beer bottles, so while the nitrogen is bubbling off and displacing theair from the bubble, we place a crown cap lightly on the lip of the bottle. After the LN stops smoking, weknow it has completely evaporated, and we seal the bottle with a cap sealer (which you can get at any home-brew shop for almost nothing). Once the bottles are thus purged, their contents will last indefinitely.

BOTTLING MANHATTANS THE PROFESSIONAL WAY: 1) Pre-dilute the Manhattans and put inbottles with a little liquid nitrogen to get rid of oxygen. 2) Wait for the nitrogen to completely stopsmoking, your sign that it has all boiled off. 3) Cap.

And here’s the second hard part: chilling accurately. At the bar we use a very accurate Randall FX freezerset to 22°F (−5.5°C). Typical refrigerator temperatures (40°F/4.4°C) make a drink that is too warm, andtypical freezer temperatures (−4°F/−20°C) will freeze these drinks outright. Even if the drinks don’t freeze,

any temperature below 20°F (−6.7°C) will severely degrade the flavor and the aroma of a Manhattan until itwarms back up a bit. If I’m taking Manhattans to a party, I use ice and salt to chill them. Careful: salt-and-icemixtures can get way too cold. Start by adding 10 percent by weight of salt to ice and mixing thoroughly.Measure the temperature of the slurry. If it is too cold, add ice or water. Too warm? Add salt. Bring moresalt with you so you can continue to add more as the ice melts. Remember to wipe off the salt before youserve! (See photographs here.)

The advantages of the bottled cocktail are many. The drinks can be cranked out very quickly; you can makea drink colder than stirring can without overdiluting; the drinks are consistent 100 percent of the time; nococktail is lost to the ice in the form of holdback from stirring; and, most importantly, people get to pourcocktails themselves into chilled coupes at their own pace, rather than trying to get an overfilled glass to theirlips without spilling.

SERVING BOTTLED COCKTAILS: 1) Add copious salt to ice with a bit of water. Nestle the bottlesinto the salted ice and allow the cocktails to chill. 2) Chill and garnish coupes. 3) Pour. 4) Enjoy.

CHILLING WITH CRYOGENS: LIQUID NITROGEN AND DRYICENow for some stuff you can’t do with a freezer. We are moving into tech land.

For some basic information on liquid nitrogen and dry ice, including some vitalsafety procedures, see the Equipment section, here. Don’t use these materials unlessyou know what you are doing, which means you have been trained by someone withpractical experience and you feel very comfortable with the materials. Reading thisbook does not constitute adequate training. Never, ever serve a cryogenic agent suchas LN or dry ice to a person. When you serve a drink prepared with a cryogen, thecryogen itself must no longer be present—just the chilling effect. Safety mistakes canend your life or the life of someone around you, and the mistakes aren’t alwaysobvious.

LIQUID NITROGENLiquid nitrogen is what it says it is: liquefied nitrogen. It is −196°C (−321°F) atatmospheric pressure. Liquid nitrogen constantly boils off into nitrogen gas, whichjoins the atmosphere—of which nitrogen is already the major component. Now, youcan chill a cocktail with liquid nitrogen. It is fairly easy to tell when all the nitrogenhas boiled off and you aren’t in danger of serving someone liquid nitrogen by mistake.But chilling cocktails with LN is problematic.

If you don’t agitate liquid nitrogen it will just float on top of your cocktail, creating a frozen crust withoutchilling the bulk of the drink.

Even though liquid nitrogen is absurdly cold, every gram has only the samechilling power as 1.15 grams of ice: it takes more LN than you expect to get any realchilling done. On the flip side, if you add too much, you will make things dangerouslycold very quickly. Liquid nitrogen floats, so you can’t just pour it on top of a drink andexpect it to chill. The LN will float to the top and create a frozen crust on the liquid,leaving the bottom unaffected: not what you want. Stirring is ineffective at getting theLN to really mix in well unless you stir vigorously, which is difficult, because as youmix LN with relatively warm liquids, it boils violently, splashing cocktailseverywhere, getting LN all over your arms, and making so much fog that you can’t seewhat the hell is going on. For all these reasons, I don’t recommend chilling individualcocktails with LN. LN is useful for chilling large batches of cocktails, with atechnique I call rock and roll.

Rock and Roll: Get two large containers, larger than you think you need.They should each hold more than four times the total amount of cocktail youare going to chill—preferably six times. If the containers are made ofstainless steel, never touch them with your bare hands while you are chillingor you risk frostbite. If you use plastic containers, be careful not to leave theliquid nitrogen stationary in them too long, or they’ll crack from the cold.Don’t ever use glass—it might shatter. I usually use plastic and take thechance on cracking.

Rocking and rolling drinks with liquid nitrogen.

Pour the cocktail into one of the large containers, and pour about two-thirds of the cocktail’s volume’s worth of liquid nitrogen on top. Quickly(remember, we don’t want plastic containers to get brittle and crack) pickup the container and pour the contents through the air into the secondcontainer. Nitrogen fog will be everywhere. Quickly pour the mix back intothe first container. Keep going back and forth, rocking and rolling the drinkbetween the two containers until the fog stops, which is your indication thatthe LN has evaporated. If you have added too little LN, the drink will be toowarm; add more LN and repeat. If the drink is too cold (as in, it hassolidified), run tap water over the outside of the container while stirring theslush. It will melt quickly.

If your rocking and rolling sprayed cocktail everywhere, making aking-hell mess, you either have terrible aim or your containers weren’t bigenough. Remember, I told you to get bigger containers than you thought youneeded! Trick: if you sense that the cocktail is about to boil over and make amess—and your senses will get attuned to such things—simply stop midpourand begin pouring only half the contents back and forth at a time until theboiling calms down. Pouring only half reduces the amount of mixing andtherefore the violence of the boiling as well.

When I chill this way, I’m usually making a lot of a particular drink thatcan’t be made with typical shaking techniques. Batches of cocktail for

carbonated drinks, for instance, are often rock-and-rolled. Ditto drinks thatyou would use the juice shake for at home. Be careful not to overchill yourdrinks. They’ll taste bad and you’ll burn someone’s tongue. If the drink is asolid, it is way too cold. If the drink is merely slushy, you won’t hurtanyone, but the drink will be colder than optimum.

VISUAL CUES TO CHILLED DRINKS (LEFT TO RIGHT): 1) This cocktail is so cold it will likely bepainful to consume. 2) This cocktail won’t hurt you (unless you drink it quickly) but it is too cold to tastebalanced. 3) This cocktail is still too cold for a cocktail with oaked spirit, but is good if you know you won’tserve the drink for several minutes. 4) Ready to drink.

Liquid Nitrogen for Glasses: There is no better way to chill glasses thanwith liquid nitrogen. It feels great, looks great, and chills only the part of theglass where the drink will be, avoiding the base and stem and thereby thesweaty ring on your table. Keep an open vacuum-insulated thermos full ofLN behind the bar. It will last several hours. Pour a little LN out of thethermos into a glass and give the glass a swirl, as if you are observing a finewine. In several seconds the glass will be cold. Pour the extra LN back intothe thermos, onto the floor, or into the next glass you need to chill. In a fewseconds the glass will frost over most appealingly.

When you chill a glass with liquid nitrogen, make sure to choose one that won’t spray liquid as you swirl.

A perfectly chilled glass.

But remember, this is LN, and there are some less-than-obvious safetyrules to observe. Never chill a glass in front of a person’s face. If youinadvertently spill LN or the glass cracks, he or she could be injured. Neverchill glasses over open ingredients or over an ice bin, lest a glass break andruin your products.

Choose appropriate glassware. Only use glasses that curve in towardthe lip, such as champagne flutes, wineglasses, and coupes. Don’t try martiniglasses: when you swirl, LN will spray out of the glass and could get inyour eyes. Some glasses—even those with inward-curving lips—crackwhen exposed to liquid nitrogen because of stresses developed during rapidchilling. Glasses that are uniformly thick, have flat bottoms or corners, orhave thin walls and a thick base tend to crack. Pint glasses and rocks glassesare poor choices. Many stemmed glasses and most champagne flutes don’tcrack with LN, but test them first. Test two or three glasses of a particularpattern. If none of your test glasses crack, buy more of those glasses and youshould be fine. My experience has been that any particular glass pattern is

going to break either consistently or almost never. Quality is not an indicatorof chillability.

At a pro bar, chilling glasses with LN means I don’t need a dedicatedglass-chilling freezer. It may be easier at home to chill your glasses in thefreezer, but at the bar, LN helps us maximize our back-of-house space.

DRY ICEDry ice is solidified carbon dioxide. It’s called dry because carbon dioxide doesn’texist as a liquid at normal atmospheric pressure; it turns directly from a solid to a gasthrough a process called sublimation. Dry ice appears to be the friendlier cryogen—it’s easier to get, less likely to give you cryogenic burns, and, as a solid, easier tohandle than liquid nitrogen. Furthermore, even though dry ice is much warmer thanliquid nitrogen—a balmy −109.3°F (−78.5°C)—don’t let that warmer temperaturefool you. Pound for pound, dry ice has almost twice the cooling power of liquidnitrogen, because it takes a lot of energy to turn CO2 directly from a solid into a gas(136.5 calories per gram), whereas liquid nitrogen needs only a measly 47.5 caloriesper gram to vaporize.

As dry ice chills, it lightly carbonates whatever liquid it is in, which is why Iprimarily use dry ice at events to prechill drinks that I’m about to carbonate.

The problem with dry ice: it is hard to use its cooling power effectively. Unlikeliquid nitrogen, which can surround and coat solids or mix with other liquids to createa large surface area for effective rapid chilling, dry ice is a solid, so it is hard to get itto chill drinks rapidly. Drop a chunk of dry ice into a glass of liquid. Initially you getbubbling and foaming and a nice carbon dioxide fog. Pretty soon, however, the liquidcalms down and your chilling rate radically slows. Look at the liquid: there’s still dryice in there, but a layer of liquid has frozen over the dry ice, insulating it. Beat on thenugget with something to break off the frozen layer and the chilling speeds up again.

Safety rule: never use dry ice to carbonate drinks in a sealed container unless youare an engineer qualified to design pressure vessels with overpressure safety valves.Search the Internet for pictures of unsuspecting boneheads who dropped dry ice into asoda bottle and sealed it, just to have it blow up in their hands. On second thought,don’t.

An obscure but enjoyable use for dry ice is to keep large batches of drinkschilled at events. You need an immersion circulator (a device with a heater that keepsliquids at very accurate temperatures) that can be set below freezing, a large plastictub, a bunch of cheap vodka, and some dry ice. You fill the tub with the vodka, whichhas a very low freezing point, set up the immersion circulator in it, and then add dryice. A pump in the circulator will keep the vodka moving around; it stirs the bath for

you, ensuring even chilling. If the temperature drops below −16°C, the heater in thecirculator will kick on and prevent overchilling.

Let’s say you are serving a high-proof drink in shot form and you want to serve itat −16°C (0°F). Put the bottles of liquor in the tub, add the cheap vodka, and put in theimmersion circulator. Turn on the circulator and set it to −16°C. Now throw in somechunks of dry ice. All you need to do is look at the bath every once in a while to see ifyou need to throw in some more chunks of dry ice. I have served thousands of well-chilled shots and drinks at events this way. This technique can also be used to keepcarbonated cocktails cold during an event.

Safety again: always make sure there is no way for someone to ingest the dry iceaccidentally.

EUTECTIC FREEZINGIf you have more time than money, and you really want to maintain a large batch of cocktails at an exacttemperature for an event like a wedding, consider eutectic freezing. You already know that adding salt towater lowers its freezing point. What you might not know is that at a certain concentration, a mixture of saltand water freezes and melts at a single temperature, called the eutectic point. These eutectic solutions can beused to maintain a constant temperature the same way regular water ice can maintain 0°C. (At other saltconcentrations, the solution’s temperature will keep rising as it melts, without any plateau.)

Different salt solutions have different eutectic points. The eutectic point for table salt, NaCl, is a solution of23.3 percent salt by weight at −6.16°F (−21.2°C), a temperature too low for most cocktail work. The magicsalt for this trick is KCl, potassium chloride. A mixture containing 20 percent KCl and 80 percent water byweight has a eutectic point of 13°F (−11°C). The best part is that KCl is really, really cheap. Some people useit as road salt, so you can often find large bags of it at home improvement stores.

To hold batched cocktails at a temperature just a bit shy of ideal serving temperature, make that mixture of 20percent KCl, 80 percent water. Make sure the KCl dissolves completely and then freeze it in your freezer.When the time comes to keep your drinks cold, throw the KCl ice in a cooler with your drinks (in bottles, ofcourse; the KCl would kill the taste), and your drinks will stay at temperature for hours. Alternatively, freezethe KCl in plastic soda bottles and drop them directly in your drink in the cooler. These bottles will take awhile to cool, and you’ll have to move them around a bit every now and again to maintain a constanttemperature.

Nitro-Muddling and Blender-MuddlingMuddling is the process of crushing ingredients with a stick prior to making a cocktail.You muddle to release fresh flavors right before a drink is made. The problem is,muddling breaks up herbs, activating polyphenol oxidases (PPOs), vicious enzymesthat cause fruits and herbs to turn brown and taste oxidized. That’s why muddled herbsnever taste as fresh as you want them to. When you crush a piece of mint and it goesblack and starts to taste like a swamp, PPOs are the main culprits.

Herb on right has been crushed with a muddler. The polyphenol oxidase enzymes have started doing theirdirty work.

Nitro-muddling and blender-muddling are techniques I developed to combatPPOs. Let’s say I want to muddle fresh basil into gin. To nitro-muddle, I freeze thebasil solid with liquid nitrogen, crush it with a muddler, and then thaw it out bypouring the gin on top. The finely crushed gin-soaked basil won’t turn brown; it staysbeautifully, shockingly green. It also tastes incredibly fresh and powerful. If I don’thave liquid nitrogen on hand, I can blender-muddle instead by simply blending thebasil with gin and straining it out. My gin will be green and fresh, but not quite asfresh as the nitro-muddled version.

HOW NITRO-MUDDLING AND BLENDER-MUDDLING FIGHTPPOSThe enemy of your enemy is your friend, and PPOs have two main enemies. The firstenemy is booze. Forty percent alcohol by volume liquor will totally and permanentlydisable PPOs. The other enemy is the ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in lemon and limejuice—an antioxidant that retards their action.

Your two allies, booze and vitamin C, aren’t enough to save you with regularmuddling. You can’t muddle effectively when your herbs are floating around in liquor.

Even if you could, regular muddling doesn’t get the booze into the leaves before thePPOs can do their dirty work. You need a secret weapon: liquid nitrogen or a blender.

Liquid nitrogen freezes herbs quickly. PPOs cannot work their devilry when theyare frozen. The herbs also become so brittle in liquid nitrogen that they can be finelypulverized with a regular muddler, almost to a dust. I call this nitro-muddling (takenote: regular freezers don’t freeze fast enough or cold enough for this trick). After younitro-muddle, you thaw the herbs with liquor. The liquor inactivates the PPOs as theherbs thaw out, and the herbs stay green. If you nitro-muddle an herb such as basil ormint and let it thaw without adding liquor, it will turn black almost instantly. After youthaw the herb in liquor and add antioxidant citrus juice, your victory against PPOs iscomplete.

Liquid nitrogen makes this herb so brittle it shatters.

On the right is a pile of nitro-muddled Thai basil, with the texture you are aiming for.

Blenders, by contrast, puree herbs into alcohol so fast that the alcohol does itsjob of wiping out the PPOs before the enzymes have a chance to work.

Whether you nitro-muddle or blender-muddle, you finish your drink by adding therest of the ingredients, shaking as usual, and straining the drink through a tea strainerinto a chilled serving glass. Straining is important. Nobody wants pieces of pureed orpulverized herbs sticking to the sides of the glass or their teeth. If you nitro-muddle,you should strain the drink after you shake. Rattling the herbs around in the shaking tinwith ice extracts more flavor. If you use a blender, you can strain before you shake,because the blender had already done all the flavor-extraction work you are going toget.

Nitro- and blender-muddled drinks have stunning colors and absurdly punchyfresh herb tastes. Because these techniques are such thorough flavor extractors, Isometimes use them even when PPOs aren’t much of a problem. Roses don’t oxidizequickly, but I’ve nitro-muddled a fresh rose into gin and carbonated it. The drink cameout pink and fresh and, well, smelling like a rose.

NITRO-MUDDLING VERSUS BLENDER-MUDDLING: WHICHIS BETTER?Nitro-muddling is without question the superior technique, which is unfortunate,because most people don’t have access to liquid nitrogen. I think the air that iswhipped into the herb-liquor mix during blending makes blending a little less effectiveat preventing oxidation than nitro-muddling is. If I had to put a number on it, I’d sayblender-muddling is about 90 percent as effective as nitro-muddling. The good newsis that blender-muddling, which is within most people’s reach, is still a really goodtechnique. If I had never tasted a nitro-muddled drink, I wouldn’t be grousing aboutblender-muddling. Because most readers will be using a blender, I’ll give blender tipsfirst.

Freezing a rose.

Nitro-muddled rose cocktail.

BLENDER-MUDDLING TIPSYou cannot blender-muddle a single drink. The liquor has to cover the blender bladescompletely or the herbs will be exposed to oxygen and turn brown and swampy.Depending on the blender, I usually endorse a two-drink minimum. Just make sure the

blades are covered. If your liquid level is a little low, you can also add your acidbefore you blend, but add the other ingredients after the blending (keep the proofhigh). At the beginning, blend slowly for a couple of seconds to get the herbs brokenup, and then blend on high for only a few seconds. Overblending whips in a lot of airand is counterproductive.

You don’t have to shake your drinks right after you blender-muddle. You canblend, add the rest of the ingredients, and shake later if you wish. How long you canwait after you blend but before you shake depends on the herb you are using. Mintdoesn’t last more than 15 minutes before I start noticing changes. Basils last about 45minutes before I start noticing big changes. Nonbrowning herbs like lovage last longer.

When you blender-muddle, you can also strain your drink through a fine chinoisbefore you shake it. Straining ahead of time makes the drinks easier to serve (you canjust use a regular hawthorn strainer after shaking).

Almost all recipes that can be nitro-muddled can be blender-muddled. The onlyexceptions are very high-water-content, low-flavor-intensity ingredients such aslettuce. Lettuce nitro-muddles well, but you have to use so much lettuce to get a stronglettuce-flavored drink that blender-muddled lettuce becomes an unstrainable soup.

When you are nitro-muddling, be sure not to grip your mixing tin, only touch the top, and use a shatterproofmuddler.

Blender-muddling is almost as good as nitro-muddling. With blender-muddling you should strain outparticles (as shown above right) before you shake. The pre-shaken mix is shown here in a glass for clarity.

NITRO-MUDDLING TIPSVery important: use liquid nitrogen only if you have been trained and are aware of allthe hazards involved (see the Equipment section, here, and the section on AlternativeChilling, here).

I always nitro-muddle in stainless steel shaking tins. Stainless steel can get coldenough to hurt you when you add liquid nitrogen to it. Only handle the tin by the rimnear the top where it has not frozen. You can visually confirm where the tin is too coldto hold. Don’t try to be a hero.

Add herbs to the tin before you add the liquid nitrogen. Pour in a small amount ofliquid nitrogen. Carefully swirl the tin and wait a couple seconds for the herbs to getcrunchy (remember, don’t touch the cold bottom of the tin). The liquid nitrogen will beboiling furiously. If you have not added enough liquid nitrogen, it will evaporatebefore the herbs are totally frozen. Add a bit more.

If you have added too much, the nitrogen will stop boiling violently—it will calmdown—while there is still a big pool of LN in the bottom of the tin. You don’t want tomuddle this way. First, you will have splashing problems, and you don’t want tosplash liquid nitrogen. Second, if there is a lot of liquid in the bottom of the tin, it isvery hard to get a good grinding action with the muddler. Third, your ingredients andtin will get so cold from the liquid nitrogen that the dilution of the cocktail will be

thrown way off when you shake—not enough ice will melt. If you do add too muchLN, don’t worry; just pour off the extra before you begin muddling. What you want isfor the LN to calm down when there are just a few millimeters (3/16 inch) left at thebottom of the tin. Then you can grind the herbs to a frozen dust.

Make sure you use a good muddler. The muddler must fit into the bottom of the tinbut needs to be big enough to create a good grinding action. Don’t use some puny ¾-inch muddling stick; 1½ inches (38 mm) in diameter is ideal. Material is alsoimportant. Don’t use glass—it will get brittle and crack. Ditto with many plastics andrubber. Wood works well—I’ve nitro-muddled plenty of drinks with old-school“French”-style rolling pins—but my favorite is the Bad Ass Muddler (BAM) fromCocktail Kingdom. Although it is made of plastic, the BAM has never chipped orcracked, and I’ve made thousands of nitro-muddled drinks with it.

When you muddle, muddle hard, with plenty of wrist action. Don’t mess around.Poorly muddled herbs lead to weak-colored drinks. It takes some practice, buteventually your drinks will have the same colors you see in these pictures. After theherbs are muddled, there should still be a wisp of liquid nitrogen left in the tin. Pouryour liquor in right away. You should get a small pfwoof! as the last of the liquidnitrogen boils off. I’ll repeat: the LN needs to be completely gone before you proceed.Stir with a bar spoon for a few seconds and then add your acid (if the recipe containsacid), then the other ingredients. The mix shouldn’t be too cold. If it is, run some coldtap water over the outside of the tin to warm it up a bit, or your dilution after shakingwill be too low. Add ice and shake like a demon. Strain through a tea strainer to catchall the herb crud. You are done.

Note that the correct nitro-muddling procedure guarantees that you will neverserve liquid nitrogen to a guest. Before you shake, you have to verify that the LN isgone, and even if you somehow mess that up (which you can’t), if you try to shake withtins containing LN, the LN will boil and blow the tins apart. (Do not try it. I’m serious.You do not want LN flying around.)

NITRO-MUDDLING, STEP-BY-STEP: 1) Pick your herbs and drop them in your tin. 2) Add some liquidnitrogen to freeze the herbs. 3) This is too much liquid nitrogen. With this much liquid you can’t muddle well,and your drink will end up underdiluted. 4) This looks good. 5) Muddle. 6) It should look like this. 7) Addliquor, let thaw, then add acids and syrups and shake with ice. 8) Strain drink through a tea strainer into achilled coupe glass.

GENERAL TIPSBlender-muddling and nitro-muddling share a drawback: they make a mess of yourbarware. Little bits of herb stick to everything. At home this is not much of a problem.In a professional bar, I recommend keeping one set of tins, a tea strainer, and ahawthorn separate just for your nitro-muddling work. I hate, hate, hate when a piece ofherb contaminates a drink where it doesn’t belong, and even with vigilant rinsing, youare bound to slip up once in a while.

RECIPESNote: in the following recipes I give proportions for one drink. These recipes willwork for nitro-muddling. If you are blender-muddling, you must make at least two.Three or more is better. Keep those blender blades covered at all times.

TBD: Thai Basil Daiquiri

This is the drink I developed the foregoing techniques for. The TBD is a typicaldaiquiri with the addition of Thai basil. Thai basil is not like Italian globe basil intaste; it has a fantastic anise note that I love. Even people who hate anise tend to likeit. This drink is as green and fresh-tasting as I can muster.MAKES ONE 51⁄3-OUNCE (160-ML) DRINK AT 15% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 8.9 G/100 MLSUGAR, AND 0.85 % ACID

INGREDIENTS5 grams (7 large) Thai basil leaves2 ounces (60 ml) Flor de Caña white rum (40% alcohol by volume) or otherclean white rum3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juiceShort 3⁄4 ounce (20 ml) simple syrup2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

PROCEDURENitro-muddle the Thai basil in a shaking tin. Then add the rum and stir. Add the limejuice, simple syrup, and saline solution or salt. Check to make sure the mix isn’tfreezing cold. Shake with ice and strain through a tea strainer into a chilled coupeglass.

Alternatively, make a double recipe and blender-muddle the Thai basil with the rumand lime juice, stir in the simple syrup and saline or salt, then strain through a finestrainer, shake with ice, and strain into two chilled cocktail coupes.

Spanish ChrisMezcal and tarragon go very well together but aren’t satisfying on their own. Whatthey need is a bit of Maraschino liqueur. The three together make a formidable troika.Spanish Chris, by the way, is a guy who lurks in the basement of the Booker and Daxdevelopment lab.MAKES ONE 5-OUNCE (149-ML) DRINK AT 15.3% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 10 G/100 MLSUGAR, AND 0.91% ACID

INGREDIENTS3.5 grams (a small handful) fresh tarragon leaves11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) La Puritita mezcal or any fairly clean blanco mezcal(40% alcohol by volume)

1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) Luxardo Maraschino (32% alcohol by volume)3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup3 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

PROCEDURENitro-muddle the tarragon in a shaking tin. Add the mezcal and Maraschino and stir.Add the lime juice, simple syrup, and saline solution or salt. Check to make sure themix isn’t freezing cold. Shake with ice and strain through a tea strainer into a chilledcoupe glass.

Alternatively, make a double recipe and blender-muddle the tarragon with the mezcal,Maraschino, and lime juice. Stir in the simple syrup and saline or salt, then strainthrough a fine strainer, shake with ice, and strain into two chilled cocktail coupes.

The Flat LeafYou might think that parsley wouldn’t make a delicious drink, but you’d be wrong.This drink is intensely green and fresh without being savory. It tastes like spring, butyou’ll like it in winter too.

The citrus in this drink is bitter orange, a variety of Citrus aurantium. Bitterorange is also known as sour orange—and sour it is. This drink doesn’t call for thefancy version of sour oranges known as Sevilles—those of beautiful peel andrelatively non-bitter juice. It calls for the bitter oranges with ugly peels and truebitterness that are found quite often in Latin American groceries, labeled “arancia.” Ifell in love with these oranges over twenty years ago when I was dating my futurewife. I started making sour/bitter orangeade from the trees that grew outside herparents’ house in Phoenix, Arizona. The streets there were lined with bitter orangetrees and nobody used the fruit. Pity. If you can’t find sour oranges, substitute limejuice.

Make a wonderful variant of this drink with lovage. I love lovage. The flavor isas if parsley and celery had a bitter baby. The celery note has a bit of celery seed to it,which is, I think, why I like it so much.MAKES ONE 51⁄2-OUNCE (164-ML) DRINK AT 17.7% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.9 G/100 MLSUGAR, AND 0.82% ACID

INGREDIENTS4 grams fresh parsley leaves or 4 grams (a small handful) fresh lovageleaves2 ounces (60 ml) gin (47.3% alcohol by volume)1 ounce (30 ml) freshly squeezed and strained bitter/sour orange juice or 3⁄4ounce (27.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup3 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

PROCEDURENitro-muddle the parsley or lovage in a shaking tin. Then add gin and stir. Add thefruit juice, simple syrup and saline or salt. Check to make sure the mix isn’t freezingcold. Shake with ice and strain through a tea strainer into a chilled coupe glass.

Alternatively, make a double recipe and blender-muddle the parsley or lovage withthe gin and sour fruit juice. Stir in the simple syrup and saline or salt, then strainthrough a fine strainer, shake with ice, and strain into two chilled cocktail coupes.

The CarvoneThis drink combines aquavit, the Swedish superdrink whose main flavor is carawayseed, and mint. It is a study in chirality. In chemistry, a chiral molecule is one that canbe composed in two ways that share the same structure but are mirror images of eachother—they are not identical in the same way that your right and left hands are notidentical. The chemical compound carvone is the main flavor compound in bothcaraway and mint, but carvone is chiral. R(–)carvone is the predominant smell ofspearmint. Its mirror image, S(+)carvone, is the predominant smell of caraway (andalso of dill, another Swedish obsession). I am usually resistant to pairing flavorsbecause they have chemical similarities. Why should ingredients that are chemicallysimilar necessarily taste good together? This case is different. I was sitting in on anorganic chemistry lecture when I learned the story of chiral carvone. I immediatelythought, Good story, better flavor combo.

This drink is different from the others in the nitro-muddled group because itcontains no acid, so the mint won’t last as long.MAKES ONE 39⁄10-OUNCE (117-ML) DRINK AT 20.4 % ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 6.8 G/100 MLSUGAR, AND 0% ACID

INGREDIENTS6 grams (a good handful) fresh mint leaves

2 ounces (60 ml) Linie aquavit (40% alcohol by volume)Short 1⁄2 ounce (13 ml) simple syrup3 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt1 lemon twist

PROCEDURENitro-muddle the mint in a shaking tin. Then add the aquavit and stir. Add the simplesyrup and saline or salt. Check to make sure the mix isn’t freezing cold. Shake with iceand strain through a tea strainer into a chilled coupe glass, and finish with the lemontwist.

Alternatively, make a double recipe and blender-muddle the mint with the aquavit. Stirin the simple syrup and saline or salt, then strain through a fine strainer, shake withice, and strain into two chilled cocktail coupes. Finish with 2 lemon twists.

Red-Hot PokersIf on a cold night in colonial America you walked into a tavern and ordered a hotdrink, the proprietor would make you a flip: a concoction of beer or cider mixed withliquor and sugar, heated by the plunge of a red-hot poker fresh out of the fireplace.Sometime around the Civil War, this drink began to change. Eggs were added to themix, and flips began to be served both hot and cold. The hot flips were made byadding boiling water instead of a poker, and something crucial was lost. A few yearsago I decided it was time to bring the red-hot poker into the twenty-first century so wecould taste what we had been missing.

You see, the red-hot poker is not merely a heating device, like a pot. A red-hotpoker shoved directly into a drink is a high-temperature flavor maker. The pokermakes awesome toasty, burned, and caramel flavors that are hard to achieve inliquids. Compare two hot drinks, one made by heating water in a pan and one madewith a red-hot poker, and you will never want the pan version again. The smell of adrink made with a red-hot poker is enchanting, filling the room like no other aroma ata bar. When somebody is making a poker drink, everybody perks up a bit—especiallywhen it’s nippy outside.

RED-HOT JOURNEY: TRADITIONAL POKERSFor my first poker experiment, I purchased a piece of equipment called a solderingcopper, a heavy, pointed, octagonal slug of copper on the end of an iron stick. Coppers

aren’t expensive, and anyone can get their hands on one. You heat the slug end with atorch, or by leaving it for ten minutes on a gas burner set on high. When you heat it to adull red and plunge it into a drink, the results can be spectacular.

Using soldering coppers to poke a drink. 1) Heat the coppers over high heat till . . . 2) They are glowingred. 3) Plunge the copper into the drink. 4) For a moment it will seem like nothing is happening. TheLeidenfrost effect will prevent rapid bubbling—then the drink will go crazy.

The copper tends to add a flavor to the drinks it heats. Sometimes the copperflavor is not noticeable, and sometimes it’s even beneficial. For years I made glögg, a

hot Swedish Christmas wine, with my chef friend Nils Noren, using solderingcoppers, and I think the glögg was the better for it. Other times the copper makesdrinks taste like you are sucking on a penny. I tried switching to cast iron, which waslikely the original official red-hot-poker material. It made drinks taste awful, like aniron supplement, and wasn’t nearly as efficient at heating as the copper is. (I wonderwhat the colonials did to make their irons not taste so bad. Or maybe they becameaccustomed to the bad taste?) I tried using slugs of stainless steel, but they didn’t workvery well: stainless is a relatively poor conductor, and relatively poor at storing heat.

HOT ROCKSNext I tried using hot stones. A friend of mine cut up some dolsots, the famous Koreanstone bowls used to make gobdol bibimbop. (Everyone should own some of thesefantastic bowls.) I would put a wok ring around a burner, fill it with dolsot chunks,and heat them until they had a faint, dull glow—roughly 800°F (430°C). I dropped acouple of hot rocks into a drink, and the drink would boil and bubble nicely. Theprocedure worked quite well, and I considered creating a category of drinks called“on the hot rocks,” before I thought better of serving people drinks containing 800°F(430°C) chunks. Should you be foolish enough to attempt the hot-rock trick, beware:most rocks will explode when heated, sending tiny pieces of rock shrapnel whizzingthrough the room. You must use rocks that are heatproof, like the dolsots and somesoapstones.

Dropping a hot rock in a drink: At first, the boiling is moderate—more Leidenfrost effect—then the drinkgoes nuts, and mellows out again.

SELF-IMMOLATIONAfter accepting the limitations of the hot-rocks approach, I began making self-heatedpokers using a variety of immersion heaters. I built my first ones from heating elements(very much like an electric range element) that I bent into short helixes. Just like range

elements, they glowed a bright red when cranked high. They were a good deal hotterthan my previous pokers and rocks. One of them was particularly hot, and when Iplunged it into cocktails, they instantly ignited.

The first time a red-hot poker is plugged in it gets hotter than it ever will again, and since it has not yetoxidized, it gets incandescent and shimmery.

Lighting a drink on fire has two pronounced effects: it dials up the awesomemeter, and it reduces the alcohol content of the drink faster than boiling does. I had aquandary now: should I make pokers that ignite cocktails or revert to cooler pokingtechnology? I had to choose one or the other. I couldn’t have a poker that only igniteddrinks sometimes, because ignition changes the alcohol content. To produce abalanced drink, I had to know beforehand whether the drink was going to catch fire ornot. If it wasn’t, I had to add more water, or boil a lot longer, to achieve the samealcohol level. If it was going to ignite, I could heat for a shorter amount of time or addmore booze—which would mean more of the flavor of the base spirit withoutincreasing the finished alcohol by volume of the drink.

It surprises most people that you actually want to reduce the alcohol content of ahot drink. When you bring a hot drink with too much alcohol up to your face, it has a

very unpleasant, stinging nose.

Never ignite or always ignite? You probably guessed that I chose always. Notjust because I like fire, but because it allowed me to increase the amount of flavor inthe finished drink.

To guarantee instant ignition on any red-hot-poker cocktail, you need to achievepretty high temperatures—roughly 1600° to 1650°F (870° to 899°C). Temperaturesthat high are perilously close to the auto-meltdown temperatures of the immersionheaters you can buy. Add the problem that red-hot pokers go through vicious thermalcycling as they get plunged into drink after drink, which quickly weakens their metalalloy and insulation, and I had stumbled into quite a design problem.

Using the poker.

I moved away from the bent-helix pokers, which looked a bit like a prop in aFrankenstein film, not clean and professional. I landed instead on a high-temperaturecartridge heater. These devices are designed to heat holes in industrial metal dies andmolds. The cartridge heaters I use are hollow sticks of a high-temperature corrosion-resistant nickel-steel alloy called Incoloy surrounding a long, thin, wire resistanceheater wound into a small helix that is wound into a bigger helix (to increase the lengthof the heating element contained in a small volume). Magnesium-oxide insulation ispacked into the cylinder around the resistance wire to prevent electrical shorts.

After many dozens of tests, I discovered that a ¾-inch-diameter cartridge heater 4inches long with 500 watts of power hits the sweet spot. Any less power and theheater won’t achieve the temperatures you need. Any more power and the heater willmelt down—sometimes spectacularly, in a shower of sparks. Originally I used higher-power heaters—1500 watts—and used thermocouple thermometers to control thetemperature so the heaters wouldn’t destruct. With that much power, the pokers canmake a drink every 30 seconds; the 500-watt pokers take 90 seconds to refreshthemselves. The problem: 1500 watters always broke quickly and dramatically, in ablazing display that freaked out bystanders. The thermocouple thermometers always

failed and led to heater meltdown. I started testing different sizes and wattages ofheater to find one that didn’t require thermal regulation but still did its job. Five-hundred watts at ¾-inch diameter and 4 inches long was the answer.

The end result of all the experimentation isn’t super-rosy, however, because eventhe 500-watters always break eventually; they just last a lot longer. Occasionally theinsulation inside the heater cracks and fails from the incessant thermal cycling, whichleads to arcs and sparks. This is rare in a 500-watt poker, and not dangerous like anarcing scenario with a 1500-watt poker, but it is startling. The most common mode offailure is the fadeaway. Over time the resistance wire inside the heater oxidizes. As itoxidizes the resistance goes up, the amount of power it produces goes down, and thedrinks no longer ignite. The poker just fades away. A poker that lives in a busy barand is turned on seven days a week from 6 p.m. to 1 or 2 a.m. has a lifetime of about amonth before it fades. At home they would last a lot longer, but I’ll never sell them.Imagine the insurance. I’m not going to tell you how to make them, either, because Ican’t recommend that you do.

POKING TECHNIQUEI always use regular pint glasses to make red-hot-poker drinks. For years I never hadone shatter—they would crack if you made drink after drink without letting them cool,but they would never shatter—until one did. I now recommend holding the glass in ametal wire holder so you won’t get burned if it breaks.

How long you burn the drink is a matter of preference. It is hard to describe goodpoking technique. Every bartender has to figure it out for him- or herself. Almost allbartenders who use the poker like it—it gives them the sense that they are reallycontrolling something primal and creating new flavors rather than mixing preexistingones.

HOW TO SERVE HOT LIQUORServe hot liquor in wide-mouth cups, such as teacups and coffee cups, not in vesselswith tall walls like a coffee mug. Tall cups should be avoided like the plague: theyconcentrate alcohol vapors and throw off your perception of the drink. A teacup with awide surface area tends to help the alcohol vapor dissipate over a wide area, makingit less concentrated at any one point. Drinks that smell fantastic in a teacup can beunbearable even to get near when poured into tall-walled glasses.

FLAVOR PROFILES FOR RED-HOT-POKER DRINKSNo matter what kind of poking technique you use, there are some flavor points youmust keep in mind. When you are poking, add a bit more sugar than you would for astandard hot drink. While in general hot drinks require less sugar (sucrose) than cold

ones do, because your perception of sucrose increases as temperature increases,poking caramelizes some of the sugar in the drink, adding nice flavor but reducingsweetness. If you are using a sweetener with a lot of fructose, such as agave, thesweetness will actually decrease as the temperature goes up, even if you don’t burnany of it. Use more.

Some bitter notes, such as the hops in beer, are intensified by poking. When I usebeer, I tend to use a less bitter type with some fruitiness—often an abbey ale—and Irarely use lagers. Bitters like Angostura work very well in poker drinks.

Most poker drinks benefit from aged spirits. Rarely does a poker drink containonly white liquor. Whiskey, dark rum, Cognac, brandy, and applejack—these are thebread and butter of hot drinks. Many liqueurs and amaros are also excellent modifiersor even main players in hot drinks. Fernet Branca, a digestif liquor that almost everybartender has a perverse love for but that I dislike with a passion, tastes good hot.Jägermeister may advise that its product should be served very cold, but I’ve mademore than a few nice flaming Jägers in my time.

When acids are called for, use them sparingly. Lots of acid doesn’t taste goodhot. The most common acid used in poker drinks is lemon juice. We are accustomed todrinking lemon in hot tea, so it just seems to fit many of the drinks. Occasionally I willuse hot lime, but heat intensifies the bitterness of lime, which can be offputting. Sourorange works well hot.

YOUR OTHER OPTIONS FOR HOT DRINKSAssuming that (a) you are not going to make your own electric red-hot poker and (b) you are not going to gobuy a soldering copper, what are your options? The best faux-poker technique I have come up with worksonly on recipes that contain simple syrup, and involves swapping the simple syrup for sugar you burn in a panbefore you flambé the liquor (see the recipes). If you don’t mind flames in the kitchen, this technique neverfails to impress.

Burning sugar in a pan. Let it get dark but not too dark. The third photo is good; the fourth, burnt.

5) Add and ignite the base spirit—there will be flames. 6) Quickly add lower-proof liquids. 7) Removefrom heat, and stir to dissolve the caramelized sugar that will be stuck to the bottom of the pan. 8)Serve.

TWO RECIPESIf using an igniting poker, burn these recipes for 7 to 10 seconds. If you are using anonigniting poker, boil for 15 to 20 seconds. Pan recipes follow poker recipes.

Red-Hot AleThis is an old-school style poker drink. Like your great-great-great-great-grandparentsused to make.

POKER STYLEMAKES ONE 43⁄5-OUNCE (138-ML) DRINK AT 15.3% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 3.5 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.33% ACID. FINISHED VOLUME AND ALCOHOL BY VOLUME VARY WITH POKINGTIME.

INGREDIENTS1 ounce (30 ml) Cognac3 ounces (90 ml) malty but not hoppy abbey ale (I like Ommegang AbbeyAle for this recipe)1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) simple syrup1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) freshly strained lemon juice3 dashes Rapid Orange Bitters (here) or commercial orange bitters2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt1 orange twist

PROCEDUREMix everything but the orange peel and poke. Serve in a teacup and express the orangepeel over the top.

PAN STYLEMAKES ONE 43⁄5-OUNCE (138-ML) DRINK AT 15.3% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, SUGARINCALCULABLE, 0.33% ACID. FINISHED VOLUME AND ALCOHOL BY VOLUME VARY WITHBURN TIME.

INGREDIENTS

21⁄2 teaspoons (12 g) granulated sugar1 ounce (30 ml) Cognac3 dashes Rapid Orange Bitters (here) or commercial orange bitters3 ounces (90 ml) abbey ale1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) freshly strained lemon juice2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt1 orange twist

PROCEDUREFirst add the sugar to a sauté pan. Heat over a high flame until the sugar begins tocaramelize. You are looking for a particular shade of dark brown—dark but not yetburned. Immediately add the Cognac and let it flame by tipping the pan toward the fire,or by igniting it with a long-handled butane lighter if you are heating electrically. Becareful! Large flames will erupt. Allow the Cognac to burn for a few seconds and addthe bitters while the pan is still flaming. Then add the ale and let the mixtureextinguish. Finally, add the lemon juice and saline or salt and remove the pan from theheat. Stir with a spoon to dissolve the caramel (don’t get burned by the steam). Servein a teacup and express the orange peel over the top.

Red-Hot CiderAnother old-style cocktail, this time with cider.

POKER STYLEMAKES ONE 43⁄5-OUNCE (138-ML) DRINK AT 15.3 ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 6.5 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.31% ACID. FINISHED VOLUME AND ALCOHOL BY VOLUME VARY WITH POKINGTIME.

INGREDIENTS1 ounce (30 ml) apple brandy (50% alcohol by volume. I use Laird’sBottled in Bond)3 ounces (90 ml) hard apple cider (use decent stuff; I usually use a Norman-style cider)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) freshly strained lemon juice2 dashes Rapid Orange Bitters (here) or commercial orange bitters

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt1 cinnamon stick

PROCEDUREMix the liquid ingredients and poke with the cinnamon stick in the poking glass. Servein a teacup with the cinnamon stick.

PAN STYLEMAKES ONE 43⁄5-OUNCE (138-ML) DRINK AT 15.3 ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, SUGARINCALCULABLE, 0.31% ACID. FINISHED VOLUME AND ALCOHOL BY VOLUME VARY WITHBURN TIME.

INGREDIENTS3 teaspoons (12.5 grams) granulated sugar1 ounce (30 ml) apple brandy (50% alcohol by volume)1 cinnamon stick2 dashes Rapid Orange Bitters (here) or commercial orange bitters3 ounces (90 ml) hard apple cider1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) freshly strained lemon juice2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt1 orange peel

PROCEDUREPut the sugar in a sauté pan over high heat. Heat until the sugar turns brown, but don’tlet it burn. Add the brandy and the cinnamon stick and ignite. Allow to burn for a fewseconds (caution!). Add the bitters while it is burning, then add the cider. Finally addthe lemon juice and saline or salt, then remove from the heat. Stir with a spoon todissolve the caramel (don’t get burned by the steam). Serve in a teacup and expressthe orange peel over the top.

Rapid Infusions, Shifting PressureInfusion refers to two intertwined processes. It can mean extracting the flavor of asolid into a liquid or impregnating a solid with the flavor of a liquid—or both. Whenyou make coffee, the process is one-way: the coffee liquid is good, the spent groundsare not. Making coffee is about extracting the flavor of the coffee grounds into theliquid. When you brandy cherries, you get two delicious products, brandy-flavoredcherries and cherry-flavored brandy. When you infuse, you’re basically making yourown new liquor with a distinct flavor. I like to use infusions in simple, uncomplicateddrinks that highlight that flavor.

ISI WHIPPERS

The infusion process can take seconds or minutes, or it can take days or weeks,depending on how it is done. Most traditional infusions in the cocktail world take daysor weeks to complete. Scads of books have been written about traditional infusiontechniques, and I commend some of them to you in the bibliography. Here we willfocus on rapid infusion, which takes seconds or minutes to complete.

Rapid infusion is a pair of modern techniques that work by manipulating pressure

and usually rely on one of two pieces of kitchen equipment: the iSi cream whipper andthe chamber vacuum machine. These devices work in opposite ways; they are likemirror images. The iSi whipper increases pressure, then returns it to atmosphericpressure; while the vacuum machine reduces pressure and then returns it toatmospheric pressure. Either tool can make either kind of infusion, but the iSi is thechamp for making liquid infusions, and the vacuum machine shines at creating infusedsolids.

I’ll discuss the iSi first, because in the bar, liquid infusions are much moreimportant than infused solids. Liquors and bitters made by infusion can be the stars ofa cocktail. Infused solids are typically relegated to garnish status.

Rapid Nitrous Infusion with the iSi WhipperRAPID NITROUS INFUSIONNitrous infusion is a technique I developed using the cream whipper and nitrous oxide,a water/ethanol/fat-soluble, sweet-tasting anesthetic gas. You might know it aslaughing gas or N2O. In rapid infusion, nitrous dissolves into liquid and forces thatliquid into a solid under pressure, where it can extract the flavors from the solid. Aftera short time you release the pressure and the nitrous boils, pushing the newly flavoredliquid out of the solid.

RAPID NITROUS INFUSIONS VERSUS TRADITIONALINFUSIONSRapid infusion is neither better nor worse than traditional long-term infusion, justdifferent. Rapid infusion tends to extract bitter, spicy, and tannic components less thanlong-term infusion does. If you have a product that is too bitter, too spicy, or too tannicfor you, go rapid. Rapidly infused cocoa nib liquor will have less bitterness than onesteeped for weeks, and will require less sugar. Rapidly infused jalapeño tequila willhave more jalapeño flavor and less spiciness than slowly infused jalapeño tequilawill. A consequence of this flavor shift is that rapid infusion tends to extract less totalflavor from a given amount of solid ingredient, so rapid infusions call for largerquantities of solid ingredients than traditional ones do.

Before we begin, a word about the primary piece of equipment we’ll be using inthis section, the whipper.

THE ISI CREAM WHIPPER: ITS DESIGN AND USESThe Austrian company iSi pioneered the whipped cream whipper. It is a stainless-steel vessel with a screw-on top that you can pressurize with gas cartridges (chargers)through a one-way valve in the top, and you can release pressure—or dispense

whipped cream—using a trigger valve and nozzle, also in the top. You can use eithercarbon dioxide or nitrous oxide chargers in the whipper, but for whipped cream andinfusions, you use only nitrous oxide (carbon dioxide makes everything tastecarbonated). To make whipped cream, add cream to the whipper, screw the top shut,and then pressurize with N2O. The N2O will dissolve into the cream under highpressure. When you want to dispense whipped cream, you hold the whipper upsidedown and squeeze the trigger valve to spray the nitrous-charged cream out of thewhipper. When the cream leaves the pressurized vessel, the nitrous expands, makingwhipped cream. Whippers are sized according to the amount of cream they hold. Thetwo most common sizes are the half-liter whipper (actual volume 772 ml) and the literwhipper (1262 ml).

The culinary significance of the cream whipper got a major bump in the latenineties when Catalan chef Ferran Adrià started using it at his restaurant, El Bulli, tomake all sorts of foams—one of the earliest rumblings of the modern cuisinemovement. Soon anyone worth his or her modern-cooking salt had a whipper, one ofthe few pieces of kitchen tech equipment that almost everyone could afford. I had acouple, but I rarely used them. It turned out that I really, really dislike most foams.They are typically underflavored and misapplied. Done right, foams are great—butthey are rarely done right.

My whippers sat around gathering dust until that life-changing day a number ofyears ago when, as I sat pondering the mechanics of infusion, I theorized that my creamwhipper could make excellent rapid infusions. I was right, and now my whippers arealways dust-free.

THE TECHNIQUE OF NITROUS INFUSION IN A NUTSHELL(WITH SOME TIPS TO AVOID EMBARRASSMENT)Before you start, make sure you have all your ingredients, some empty containers, astrainer and a timer, and enough nitrous chargers. Now examine your whipper. Is thegasket in place? If not, the whipper won’t seal and you’ll lose your gas (I’ve beenembarrassed more than once by not checking). Verify that the valve on the inside of thewhipper head is clean. If your valve is dirty (as it often is when you make infusionsone after the other), the whipper won’t seal: more embarrassment. Finally, smell thewhipper. If some joker screwed the whipper shut when it was wet, it will fester andstink to high heaven. Enjoy getting that stink out and keep reminding yourself never tostore a whipper screwed shut.

Make sure the inside of the whipper head is clean.

Now we can get down to business. Let’s say you want to extract the flavor ofturmeric into gin. Turmeric is a good choice because it’s porous, aromatic, colorful,and flavorful, the four characteristics you should look for in your solid infusioningredient. Gin is a good choice because it’s strong in alcohol, clean-flavored (so itwill marry well with our turmeric), and clear (so it won’t mess with turmeric’sawesome hue). First put the turmeric in the whipper, then pour in the gin. Seal thewhipper and charge it with nitrous. If your recipe calls for two chargers, as this onedoes, shake the whipper for a couple seconds and then quickly add the second charger.Right now the pressure inside the whipper will be as high as 360 psi (24.8 bars)!Shake the whipper. As you shake, the gas will dissolve into the liquid, and thepressure inside the whipper will drop down to between 72 and 145 psi (5 and 10bars), depending on the recipe and the size of the whipper. The pressure will alsoforce the gin and the nitrous oxide solution into the turmeric.

Now you wait, but not long—usually just 1 to 5 minutes; 2½ in this case. Set yourtimer. Rapid infusions happen so fast that even 15 seconds’ difference in infusiontimes can make a taste impact. While you wait, the gin that was forced into theturmeric is rapidly extracting flavors from it. I tend to shake the whipper every once ina while when I’m waiting. I don’t know if it helps, but I’m a fidgety guy.

If your whipper clogs and you can’t unclog it by pulsing the vent valve, you can unscrew the lid as a lastresort. This process is messy, and can be quite difficult if the whipper is under full pressure.

When the infusion time is up, point the whipper straight up and vent it as fast asyou can. Hold a container over the nozzle to catch anything that sprays out. As youvent, the nitrous expands and boils out of the solution, forcing turmeric-flavored ginout of the turmeric and back into the rest of the gin, completing the infusion. Thewhipper should vent completely. If the valve gets clogged with particles duringventing, you’ll know it. If that happens, pump the valve violently to unclog it. As a lastresort, hold the whipper over a container and carefully unscrew it. iSi has machined apressure release into the threads of the lid so that fluid should flow down the edge ofthe whipper rather than blowing the lid off the top—one reason to go name brand.

After the pressure has vented, unscrew the top of the whipper and listen. Youwill hear bubbling as the nitrous continues to come out of the solution and push flavorsout of the turmeric. When the bubbling dies down, strain the gin, and you are done. Idon’t know why, but the flavor seems to change, often getting stronger, for a couple ofminutes after you strain, possibly because of nitrous leaving the liquor. I usually restan infusion for 10 minutes before I use it.

Recently iSi has released an attachment for its whippers to make the infusionprocess easier—specifically to address the problems of messy venting and valveclogging. The technique is the same whether you go old-school or use the newattachments.

NITROUS INFUSION VARIABLES AND HOW TO CONTROLTHEM

CHOOSING THE SOLIDEven when your goal is to extract the flavor of a solid into a liquid, infusion alwaysstarts the other way around: infusing a liquid into a solid. Choosing the right solid isimportant. Any candidate for rapid infusion must be porous—it must have air holes init. Coffee, cocoa nibs, galangal, ginger, peppers—most plant products, in fact—havepores and produce good infusions. During the rapid-infusion process, the pressure ofthe N2O injects those pores with liquid. The larger and more numerous the pores inyour solid, the more liquid you can inject into it and the more flavor you can get out.

Pores are only useful if the liquid can get to them, so some ingredient preparationis usually necessary. Cutting ingredients into thin slices or grinding them creates moresurface area and makes more pores available to the liquid. Exactly how thinly youslice or finely you grind your ingredients will have a major impact on the flavor youachieve with rapid infusion, much more so than with traditional long-term infusions.Don’t overlook the importance of consistent cutting and grinding when you workrapidly.

THE GAS YOU USE IS IMPORTANT!When I first started spreading the word on my nitrous infusion technique, some people started calling itnitrogen infusion, because there is a superficially similar laboratory technique called nitrogen cavitation, inwhich nitrogen (N2)—not nitrous oxide (N2O)—is forced into solution under tremendous pressure: 800 psi (55bars) or more. When this pressure is released, tiny nitrogen bubbles form and then collapse. The force of thecollapsing bubbles ruptures cells. Nitrogen cavitation is an even more violent version of the diving diseaseknown as the bends. The difference between nitrogen cavitation and nitrous infusion is that the pressuresinvolved in nitrous infusion are much lower—closer to 80 psi at venting time, an order of magnitude less thanin nitrogen cavitation. Nitrous infusion relies on the high solubility of N2O to do its work. Nitrogen wouldn’t beeffective in this application. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is soluble in alcohol and water, so it could be used insteadof N2O, but residual CO2 would alter the taste of the liquor.

SOLID-TO-LIQUID RATIOSRapid infusions usually require more solids than traditional infusions, because rapidinfusion extracts fewer flavor components from an ingredient than traditional infusiondoes. That sounds bad, but it isn’t. When I’m doing rapid infusion, I’m doing itbecause I want to decrease the extraction ratio of a particular flavor I don’t like—say,the detergent note of lemongrass. If I waited for the rapid infusion to extract as muchflavor as a traditional infusion would, I’d also have that detergent note. Instead, I do ashorter infusion with a lot of lemongrass. Look at the ratios in the recipes below andyou will get an idea of how much of a particular ingredient to use.

TEMPERATURETemperature drastically affects infusion rates. You’ll perform most rapid infusions at

room temperature. Room temperature doesn’t alter the flavors of ingredients bycooking them and is fairly consistent. Cold temperatures are bad. If you infuse cold,the rate of infusion is lowered and there isn’t as much bubbling during venting, so youdraw out much less flavor. Elevated temperatures produce a double whammy in theopposite direction: lots of fast flavor extraction and lots of bubbling, usually too much.However, when I want to extract a lot of flavor, including bitter notes, I’ll heat theinfusions up (see the section on Rapid Bitters, here). Because the iSi whipper issealed, volatile aromas are not lost when you heat it, unlike heating an infusion in apot. Just make sure to cool the whipper before you vent.

PRESSUREThe pressure inside the whipper is a very important variable. I almost always want asmuch pressure as I can get. Higher pressure equals faster, more balanced infusions.You’d think that you could lower the infusion pressure and just infuse longer, but theresults are almost never the same. The speed of infusion is vital to the balance offlavor. The higher the pressure and therefore the faster the flavor transfer rate, themore you preferentially select for aromas, top notes, fruitiness, and the more youdownplay bitterness and muddiness. I don’t know why this is true, but it is.

ISI PRESSURE CHART

If you want consistent results with a rapid infusion recipe, you must generate the

same pressure in the whipper time after time. You’ll need to follow recipes exactly,including the amount of ingredients you add, the size of the whipper you use, and thenumber of chargers you use. All those factors affect pressure, as we’ll see here.

The pressure in the whipper is generated by the gas chargers you add. Eachcharger contains 7.5 grams of nitrous oxide. You can add one charger or two,sometimes three. How much pressure those chargers generate depends on threefactors. The size of the whipper is the first determinant. A liter whipper at capacitywill have a much lower pressure per charger than a half-liter whipper, because the gashas more volume to fill. Second, the quantity of product in the whipper directlyinfluences the final pressure, because it takes up volume. Full whippers producehigher pressures than empty whippers, by a good margin. A half-liter whipper with500 milliliters of 40 percent alcohol by volume vodka will have a one-chargerpressure of 100 psi (6.9 bars). An empty half-liter whipper with one charger only hasa pressure of 78 psi (5.4 bars). And solids in a whipper take up space just as liquidsdo, so increasing the solids also increases the pressure. Last, the type of liquid you useaffects the pressure. Higher-ethanol concentrations produce lower pressures becauseN2O is more soluble in ethanol than in water. For the pressures inside iSi whippersunder various conditions, see the iSi Pressure Chart here.

Last note on pressure: though iSi doesn’t recommend putting two chargers into ahalf-liter whipper, or three chargers into a 1-liter whipper, both conditions are totallysafe. For the reasons, see the sidebar on iSi Pressure Safety.

ISI PRESSURE SAFETYiSi will not endorse the practice of loading two chargers into a half-liter whipper unless the whipper is fullyvented before the second charger is applied, even though the two-charge practice is 100 percent safe. iSi’swhippers can handle many times the actual pressure involved and have a safety mechanism that preventsthem from charging to dangerous levels. Even if that safety mechanism fails, the initial failure of an iSiwhipper under extreme pressure is a bulging-out at the bottom of the bottle—not catastrophic. Why does iSitake this stand on using two chargers? Apparently, because cheaper, no-name whippers do not have safetypressure releases like the iSi whippers do, and they can pose a threat of explosion if overcharged. The Frenchgovernment has specific use guidelines regarding cream whippers that apply to all whippers, regardless ofbrand, and iSi, as an EU-based company, adheres to those guidelines worldwide.

I don’t, and you don’t have to either. Just don’t go over pressure with no-name units. Aside from the possibledangers, I’ve had nothing but bad luck. They tend to leak a lot.

For two-charger recipes, iSi recommends that you charge once, shake, fully vent the whipper, then add thesecond charger. This technique produces a lower ultimate pressure than my preferred two-charger approach,but it’s still better than just one.

TIME

Rapid bitters and tinctures infuse from 5 minutes to 1 hour, and with these recipes yourtiming can be a bit sloppy. When you are making infused liquors, by contrast, infusiontime is usually between just 1 and 2 minutes, so it’s vital that you get your timing justright. When an entire infusion lasts only a minute or two, seconds matter. Use a timer.Precision is especially crucial on strong bitter ingredients such as coffee and cacaonibs, because the line between an infusion that is too weak and one that is too bitter isvery thin.

VENTINGVenting is the process of squeezing the trigger and releasing the pressure in the iSi,allowing the liquid inside to return to atmospheric pressure. Venting is what generatesflavor-extracting bubbles. Vent fast. The faster you vent, the more violent the bubblingand the more flavor you extract. Liquid often sprays out of the whipper when you areventing; that’s okay. It’s good, in fact.

Problems arise when small particles clog the valve and the whipper stopsventing. You have to make sure you vent all the way, and in a timely fashion. As longas the whipper is under pressure it is still rapidly infusing. If you get hung up whileventing, your infusion time increases. Worse, partial venting doesn’t create as violenta bubbling effect as full-fast venting. You are bound to clog the whipper from time totime, but to help prevent clogs, don’t agitate the infusion just prior to venting. Allowthe particles to sink to the bottom. Most important, aim the whipper up while you ventso you aren’t pouring particles through the valve. You’ll know you have a clog on yourhands when the rush of gas and foam stops suddenly instead of gradually petering out.Vigorously pump the handle to dislodge the clog. As a last resort, open the whipperslowly under pressure—but do this over a large bowl.

Rapid venting is what you want.

Listen to the bubbles.

Don’t strain the mixture right away after you vent unless the recipe tells you to.Bubbles are still extracting flavor. Remember to listen to them—they are the sound ofinfusion.

Now some recipes.

Rapid Liquors and CocktailsAll the recipes in this section are written for half-liter whippers. As I mentionedabove, you cannot change the volumes of these recipes without changing the results. Ifyou wish to use a liter-sized whipper, you can double the recipes and add an extracharger (make sure to shake between adding chargers). The results will not be exactlythe same but will still be good. If you like the results of the scaled-up recipe, make itthat way all the time. If the infusion is too strong, reduce time or omit the extracharger. If the recipe is too weak, increase the infusion time.

The Glo-Sour and Turmeric GinMany people are interested in turmeric these days because they’ve heard tell that it’s ahealth-bringing superspice. I couldn’t care less about that, but it tastes great and has afantastic color. Most people are accustomed to working with powdered dry turmeric;this recipe requires the fresh stuff. Turmeric is a rhizome, and the rhizomes look likelittle juicy orange ginger roots with a papery brown skin. You can get fresh turmeric inany store that caters to an Indian clientele.

Traditional slow turmeric infusions are difficult to work with: they are funky andhave weird aftertastes. Rapid iSi makes a much more balanced infusion. The drink isbright orange and very refreshing. Speaking of bright orange, turmeric stains surfacesindelibly. Do not peel turmeric; wash it under running water, wearing gloves. Wannamess with someone? Have him peel some turmeric with his bare hands. They’ll beorange until the skin wears off. Leave your gloves on while you cut the turmeric, anddo not cut fresh turmeric on any surface you care about. I wrap my cutting board withplastic and put a piece of folded paper on top of that. Store this liquor in glass, asplastic containers will be ruined. If stored in the fridge, this infusion tastes best withinabout a week, after which the flavors begin to go flat and the color will dull.

The cocktail I’ve included for this infusion is a lime sour riff. For the bitters Icall for, you can use a commercial variety or make the Rapid Orange Bitters. If youomit the bitters altogether, the resulting cocktail will still be good but will be missingthat certain something. When light hits this drink it almost glows, hence Glo-Sour.

INGREDIENTS FOR TURMERIC GIN500 ml Plymouth gin100 grams fresh turmeric, thinly sliced into 1.6 mm (1⁄16-inch) disks

EQUIPMENTTwo 7.5-gram N2O chargers

PROCEDURERapid infuse with the chargers for 2 minutes 30 seconds (shake between addingchargers). Vent, and listen to the bubbles. Allow the bubbling to mellow out for acouple of minutes, then strain. Press on the turmeric to extract the majority of the gin.(Remember to wear gloves; this liquor will stain.) Rest 10 minutes.YIELD: 94% (470 ML)

INGREDIENTS FOR GLO-SOURMAKES ONE 51⁄3-OUNCE (160-ML) SHAKEN DRINK AT 15.9% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 8.0G/100 ML SUGAR, 0.84% ACID

2 ounces (60 ml) Turmeric Gin3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juiceFlat 3⁄4 ounce (20 ml) simple syrup3 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt1–2 dashes Rapid Orange Bitters (here)

PROCEDURECombine the ingredients in a cocktail shaker, add ice, shake, and strain into a chilledcoupe glass.

GLO-SOUR

Turmeric is a brightly colored rhizome. Careful—it will stain everything indelibly. Wear gloves and wrapyour cutting boards with plastic.

The Lemon Pepper Fizz and Lemongrass VodkaThis drink is very refreshing. Lemongrass is sometimes difficult to work with becauselong infusions bring out a detergentlike flavor. My rapid iSi technique eliminates thisproblem. Note that this recipe asks for a lot of lemongrass: it’s the only way to get thespirit to balance the way I like it to. The whipper will be almost full of lemongrass.The lemongrass infusion should be used fresh—within a day or two. Keep it in thefreezer and it should last a week.

I carbonate this cocktail to highlight the freshness of the lemongrass. For moreinformation on carbonation, see the section on bubbles (here). Although I use acarbonation rig to add bubbles, you could use a Sodastream, or in a pinch the samewhipper you used for infusing. The cocktail calls for Black Pepper Tincture andclarified lemon juice. If that’s too big a hassle for you, carbonate the base cocktail andthen add regular lemon juice and a couple grinds of fresh black pepper. I won’t tell.

INGREDIENTS FOR LEMONGRASS VODKA300 ml vodka (40% alcohol by volume)180 grams fresh lemongrass, sliced into disks

EQUIPMENTTwo 7.5-gram N2O chargers

PROCEDURECombine the ingredients in a half-liter whipper. Charge with one charger, shake, thenadd the second charger and shake. Total infusion time is 2 minutes. Vent and allow thebubbling to stop, then strain. Press hard on the lemongrass to extract all the vodka.Allow to rest for 10 minutes before using.

YIELD: 90% (270 ML)

INGREDIENTS FOR LEMON PEPPER FIZZMAKES ONE 5½-OUNCE (166-ML) CARBONATED DRINK AT 14.3% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME,7.1 G/100 ML SUGAR, 0.43% ACID

58.5 ml Lemongrass Vodka12 ml clarified lemon juice (or regular lemon juice added at the end)18.75 ml simple syrupDash Rapid Black Pepper Tincture (here)2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt76 ml filtered water

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients, chill to -10°C, and carbonate. Serve in a chilledchampagne flute.

Café Touba and Coffee ZacapaThis drink is based on Café Touba, the famous hot coffee drink from Senegal. Idiscovered café Touba on a chef education trip I took to that country. The devotees ofthe Mourides, a Senegalese Muslim brotherhood, are famous for their small cups ofsweetened frothy coffee spiked with djer, a peppery West African spice that comesfrom the Xylopia aethiopica tree. In English, djer is called grains of Selim, and it isdifficult to get unless you have access to a West African grocery. Djer fulfills asimilar role in Café Touba that cardamom fulfills in some versions of Middle Easterncoffee. If you can’t get it, you can substitute cardamom and cubebs, but the flavor willbe different. Like its inspiration, this cocktail is frothy, but it’s also cold andalcoholic. The real Café Touba—remember, it’s a Muslim favorite—contains noalcohol.

The cocktail’s base is freshly ground coffee infused into dark rum. Rapid coffeeinfusions are fantastic but tricky. The size of the grind really alters the infusion results.My first experiments with rapid coffee infusions used an espresso grind, and theresults were great—when they were great. My infusions were plagued withinconsistency. When I used my own grinder, I could get repeatable results, but when Idid demos away from home and had other people grind the coffee for me, the resultswere erratic. The problems were especially bad if the grind was too fine. Not onlywould the liquor be way too bitter, but it would clog my filters, making strainingdifficult. Now I use a grind slightly finer than drip coffee, and my results are more

consistent and filtration is much easier.

Café Touba.

Djer—the characteristic spice in Senegalese Café Touba—is known in English as grains of Selim.

This is how fine you should grind your coffee.

You must use freshly ground coffee for this recipe—preferably coffee that is justminutes old. I use Ron Zacapa 23 Solera as the rum base for this liquor because it hasa well-balanced, unfunky nose and because you need an aged rum to stand up to andcomplement the coffee. Any full-bodied aged rum that isn’t too sweet-smelling orfunky will work.

Note that I overinfuse this liquor so that it tastes too much like coffee, and then Idilute it with unmodified rum. I overinfuse for two reasons: I can make a full 750 mlbatch of Coffee Zacapa in a 500 ml whipper, and I can fine-tune the coffee flavor totaste. I use a technique called milk washing in this recipe, which removes some of theharshness of the coffee and adds whey protein (see the section on washing liquor,here). The whey protein from the milk washing gives the Café Touba cocktail itsfrothy head. You can omit the milk-washing step and instead add a ½ ounce (15 ml)cream to the drink right before you shake it.

INGREDIENTS FOR COFFEE ZACAPA100 grams whole fresh coffee beans, roasted on the darker side750 ml Ron Zacapa 23 Solera or other aged rum, divided into a 500 mlportion and a 250 ml portion100 ml filtered water185 ml whole milk (optional)

EQUIPMENTTwo 7.5-gram N2O chargers

PROCEDUREGrind the coffee in a spice grinder until it is slightly finer than drip grind. Combine500 ml (162⁄3 ounces) rum and the coffee in a half-liter whipper, charge with onecharger, shake, and then add the second charger. Shake for another 30 seconds. Totalinfusion time should be 1 minute 15 seconds. Vent. Unlike with most infusions, don’twait for the bubbling to stop. If you do, the liquor will be overinfused. Instead, rest forjust 1 minute, then pour through a fine cloth into a coffee filter. A coffee filter alonewill clog too quickly. The mixture should filter within 2 minutes. If not, your grindwas too fine. Stir the drained grounds in the filter, then add water evenly over thegrounds and let the water drip through (this is called sparging). That water willreplace some of the rum that was trapped in the grounds during the infusion. The liquidthat comes out of the grounds from sparging should be about 50 percent water and 50percent rum.

At this point you should have lost roughly 100 ml (31⁄3 ounces) of liquid to the grounds.About half of that lost liquid is water and the other half rum, so your final product hasa slightly lower alcohol by volume than you started with.

Taste the infusion. If it is strong (which is good), add the additional 250 ml (81⁄3ounces) of rum to the liquor. If the infusion can’t be toned down without losing theflavor of the coffee, your grind size was too coarse; don’t add any more rum andreduce the amount of milk you use for milk washing to 120 ml (4 ounces).

If you are milk washing (good for you!), read the next paragraph. If you’re not, skipahead and start making the drink.

While stirring, add the Coffee Zacapa to the milk and not the other way around, lest themilk instantly curdle. Stop stirring and allow the mixture to curdle, which it should dowithin about 30 seconds. If it doesn’t curdle, add a little 15% citric acid solution orlemon juice bit by bit until it does, and don’t stir when it’s curdling. Once the milkcurdles, gently use a spoon to move the curds around without breaking them up. Thisstep will help capture more of the casein from the milk and produce a clearer product.Allow the mix to stand overnight in the fridge in a round container; the curds willsettle to the bottom and you can pour the clear liquor off the top. Strain the curdsthrough a coffee filter to get the last of the liquor yield. Alternatively, spin the liquorin a centrifuge at 4000 g’s for 10 minutes right after it curdles. That’s what I do.

Approximate final alcohol by volume: 31%YIELD: APPROXIMATELY 94% (470 ML)

INGREDIENTS FOR DJER SYRUP400 grams filtered water

400 grams granulated sugar15 grams djer (grains of Selim), or 9 grams green cardamom pods and 5grams black pepper

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients in a blender and blend on high till the sugar is dissolved.Strain through a fine strainer to get rid of the big particles, then through a moist papertowel or strainer bag (don’t use a coffee filter; it will take forever).

INGREDIENTS FOR CAFÉ TOUBAMAKES ONE 39⁄10-OUNCE (115-ML) SHAKEN DRINK AT 16.1% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 8.0G/100 ML SUGAR, 0.39% ACID

2 ounces (60 ml) Coffee Zacapa1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) Djer Syrup3 drops saline solution1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) cream (if you have not milk-washed the rum)

PROCEDUREShake all the ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker and strain into a chilled coupeglass. The drink should be creamy and frothy.

1) After you vent your whipper, you should strain the liquor through a cloth and then through a coffee filter.Then re-wet the grounds and filter again. 2) Taste the liquor, 3) it should require the addition of fresh rum.Pour the coffee liquor into milk while stirring. 4) The milk will curdle. 5) Gently stir the curds around till theliquid gets clearer and clearer then let the liquid settle. 6) Strain.

Jalapeño TequilaMost hot-pepper infusions are high on spice but low on pepper flavor. Rapid iSibrings out more of the pepper flavor, yielding a more complex spirit. You’ll needmore pepper than you would for a traditional long-term infusion. I remove the veinsand seeds from the peppers in this recipe; capsaicin, the compound that gives pepperstheir punch, is concentrated around them. I want some heat, but I also want a lot ofaroma and flavor. To do that, I nix the seeds and up the quantity of jalapeños.

INGREDIENTS

45 grams green jalapeño pepper seeded, deveined, and very thinly sliced500 ml blanco tequila (40% alcohol by volume)

EQUIPMENTTwo 7.5-gram N2O chargers

PROCEDURECombine the ingredients in a half-liter whipper. Add one charger and shake; add thesecond charger and shake. Total infusion time should be 1 minute 30 seconds. Vent.Allow to rest 1 minute. Strain and press on the pepper slices to extract the majority ofthe tequila. Allow to rest 10 minutes before use.YIELD: OVER 90%

Seed and devein jalapeños and slice them like this.

Jalapeño tequila.

Schokozitrone and Chocolate VodkaCocoa nibs are porous and infuse quite well. The problem is that most cocoa nibs arecrap. Companies often foist off the lowest-quality beans they have on unsuspectingnibs buyers. Never, ever use off-brand nibs for making infusions. Taste the nibs youhave. Do they taste sour and acrid? Then your infusion will taste sour and acrid. I useonly Valrhona cocoa nibs; the quality is always good.

As long as you can get good nibs, they are a much better bet for producingchocolate liquors than cocoa powder (messy and difficult to strain) or solid chocolate(nonporous) is. The chocolate vodka made with this recipe has a strong chocolateflavor but very little bitterness; you don’t need to add a lot of sugar.

The cocktail I make with this liquor is a bit polarizing, because I add lemon.Some people just don’t like citrus and chocolate. I do. I got the idea for this particularcombination from my wife, Jennifer, who picked up the habit of enjoying chocolate icecream with lemon sorbet while living in Frankfurt, Germany, as a teen. The drink has acouple dashes of chocolate bitters to round out the flavors. I give my recipe here, but

you can substitute a commercial chocolate bitters or mole bitters, or omit the bittersaltogether.

INGREDIENTS FOR CHOCOLATE VODKA500 ml neutral vodka (40% alcohol by volume)75 grams Valrhona cocoa nibs

EQUIPMENTTwo 7.5-gram N2O chargers

PROCEDUREAdd the vodka and nibs to a half-liter cream whipper. Charge with one charger andswirl/shake for several seconds, then charge with an additional 7.5 grams of N2O.Continue to agitate for a full minute. Let rest for 20 seconds, then vent and open thewhipper. Allow the liquor to stay in the whipper for another minute or so, until thebubbling starts to subside. Strain out the nibs and pass the vodka through a coffeefilter. Allow to rest several minutes before using. Chuck the leftover nibs—all thatremains in them is the bitterness.YIELD: OVER 85%, 141⁄5 OUNCES (425 ML)

INGREDIENTS FOR SCHOKOZITRONEMAKES ONE 41⁄3-OUNCE (128-ML) STIRRED DRINK AT 19.2% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.4G/100 ML SUGAR, 0.70% ACID.

2 ounces (60 ml) Chocolate Vodka1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lemon juice1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup2 dashes Rapid Chocolate Bitters (here)2 drops saline solution or a pinch of saltCandied ginger

PROCEDURECombine the vodka, lemon juice, simple syrup, bitters, and saline or salt in a mixingtin. Stir briefly with ice, strain into an old-fashioned glass, and garnish with thecandied ginger. This recipe requires very little sugar, even though the cocoa nibs areunsweetened, because the infusion technique leaves the bitterness behind.

Rapid Bitters and TincturesWhat soy sauce is in China and ketchup is in America, bitters are in cocktails:ubiquitous. They are alcoholic infusions of aromatic herbs, spices, and peels with theaddition of bittering agents—usually the bark, roots, or leaves of some fantasticallybitter plant such as gentian, quassia, cinchona (from which quinine is derived), orwormwood. Bitters are a holdover from the days when people considered booze to bemedicine. In their nineteenth-century heyday, bitters were patent medicinescompounded by apothecaries from a variety of plant materials chosen for supposedmedical or digestive benefits. Now people make bitters because they like the taste,and over the past decade there has been a bitters explosion. People recreatenineteenth-century recipes and compound new ones. Bartenders and homeexperimenters make their own bitters so their cocktails bear their unique stamp.Bitters are fun.

Traditional bitters can take weeks to produce, but with my rapid bitters techniqueyou will have bitters in under an hour. In addition to being fast, rapid bitters havefantastic aromatic qualities. Unlike most nitrous infusion recipes, rapid bitters aresometimes heated and are infused for longer—20 minutes to an hour—because wewant to extract bitterness and we want concentrated flavors. Bitters are powerful, sothey are best tasted by the drop.

Unlike bitters, which are a mélange of flavors, tinctures are strong concentratedinfusions of a single flavor. Like bitters, they are used by the drop and dash. I rarelyheat tinctures, because I am often using ingredients whose flavors are adverselyaffected by heat.

Because traditional bitters and tinctures take so long to make, recipedevelopment takes a long time—months. With rapid infusion you can cycle through teniterations of a recipe in one day. I hope you will use the recipes below as a templateto develop your own. These recipes are written for half-liter whippers.

INGREDIENTS FOR RAPID ORANGE BITTERS: At center: cloves. Inner circle clockwise from bottomleft: caraway seeds, cardamom seeds, gentian root and quassia bark. Outer arc from left to right: driedgrapefruit peel, fresh orange peel, dried orange peel, and dried lemon peel.

Rapid Orange BittersThis is a very powerful and balanced aromatic orange bitters, which I use in the Glo-Sour recipe here. Rapid infusion allows the aroma to be on a par with the bitterness. Iuse some fresh orange peel for brightness; a combination of dried Seville orange,lemon, and grapefruit peels brings a rounded pancitrus feeling. A tiny bit of clovesadds warmth. Cardamom and caraway, both good friends of citrus, lend theirspiciness. Gentian root and quassia chips are classic bittering agents, putting the bitterin the bitters. I like this recipe a lot. Some of the ingredients may be hard to sourcelocally. Here in New York we have at least two shops that specialize in dried spices,barks, roots, and plant materials. If you aren’t so lucky, turn to the Internet.

As you make this recipe, don’t be alarmed when you open the whipper and findalmost no liquid inside. The peels will have inflated and absorbed almost all thebooze. That’s okay. You will press the bejeezus out of the peels to get your bitters.The yield is low, but the product goes a long way.

After these bitters are made, the pectin from the citrus rinds can sometimes forma weak gel. If you have Pectinex Ultra SP-L (an enzyme discussed in detail in theClarification section, here), you can add a couple grams to break the gel down. If youdon’t have SP-L, just shake the bitters a bit and let them settle.

INGREDIENTS0.2 grams whole cloves (3 cloves)2.5 grams green cardamom seeds, removed from pod

2 grams caraway seeds25 grams dried orange peel (preferably Seville)25 grams dried lemon peel25 grams dried grapefruit peel5 grams dried gentian root2.5 grams quassia bark350 ml neutral vodka (40% alcohol by volume)25 grams fresh orange peel (no pith, orange only)

EQUIPMENTOne 7.5-gram N2O charger

PROCEDUREIf possible, crack the cloves, cardamom seeds, and caraway seeds before adding themand the rest of the dry ingredients to a blender and processing till everything is the sizeof peppercorns. Put the dry mix, the vodka, and the fresh orange peel in a half-liter iSiwhipper and charge with the charger. Shake for 30 seconds. Leave the iSi underpressure and place it in a pan of simmering water for 20 minutes. Cool the whipper inice water till it’s at room temperature. Vent the whipper, open it, and look inside. Thepeels will have absorbed almost all the liquid. Do not despair. Put the solids in a nutmilk bag, superbag (culinary straining bag), or cloth napkin and squeeze hard over acontainer. You should get 185 ml of bitters. You can increase yield by pressingharder, adding more liquid at the outset, or rewetting the peels. All of these willincrease yield but reduce quality.

If necessary, pass through a coffee filter.YIELD: 52% (185 ML)

MAKING RAPID ORANGE BITTERS: 1) After you begin the infusion, put the sealed whipper in simmeringwater for 20 minutes, chill the whipper in ice water till it is at room temperature, then vent. 2) Almost all theliquid will be absorbed. 3) Squeeze the liquid out of the solids. 4) The finished bitters are cloudy. 5) Ifdesired, add the enzyme Pectinex Ultra SP-L and let the bitters settle, 6) then filter.

Rapid Chocolate BittersSome drinks want a little drop of bitter chocolate flavor. These bitters are equally athome in tequila or mezcal recipes and in sour drinks with strong vegetal or herbalflavors. Drinks that you don’t think want chocolate, like appletinis (yes, I make anappletini; see the section on apples, here), are helped by these bitters. I use them in theSchokozitrone cocktail, here.

You must use high-quality cocoa nibs for this recipe; I use Valrhona. I kept therecipe very simple—cocoa nibs and gentian for bitterness and mace for spice—which

means it works in a wide variety of cocktails. These bitters aren’t heated, sinceheating would make a mess of the nibs. This recipe takes longer than any of my otherrapid recipes, clocking in at 1 hour.

INGREDIENTS3.0 grams mace (3 whole)350 ml neutral vodka (40% alcohol by volume)100 grams Valrhona cocoa nibs1.5 grams dried gentian1.5 grams quassia bark

EQUIPMENTTwo 7.5-gram N2O chargers

PROCEDUREBreak up the mace. Add everything to a half-liter iSi whipper and charge with onecharger. Shake for several seconds and then add the second charger. Shake for 20seconds more. Allow the mixture to infuse for 1 hour, shaking occasionally, then vent.It will bubble and foam a lot. Listen and wait for the bubbling to subside. Strain theliquid out and press on the solids to extract the most liquid. Pass the bitters through acoffee filter.YIELD: 85% (298 ML)

INGREDIENTS FOR CHOCOLATE BITTERS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT): Cocoa nibs, quassiabark, gentian, and mace.

Rapid Hot Pepper TinctureIf you need to add heat to a drink, this is a good choice. It is a mix of red peppers,which bring fruitiness, and green peppers, which lend a vegetal note. To best extractthe capsaicin—the main compound that provides the heat of peppers—I use food-grade 200-proof dehydrated alcohol (100% alcohol by volume). Capsaicin is muchmore soluble in alcohol than in water. I’ve tried the recipe using regular 40% alcoholby volume vodka and didn’t like it as much: not enough punch. Unfortunately, purefood-grade ethanol is hard to find. You can substitute 195 proof (97.5% alcohol byvolume), which you may be able to get at the liquor store, depending on your state’slaws. After the infusion I add some water to reduce the proof and help rinse theinfusion of the peppers.

If you store this tincture for more than several months, the heat level will stay thesame but the aroma will change. The red fruity notes will fade and the green vegetalnotes will predominate. Eventually the tincture will taste as if it had been madeentirely with green peppers. It will still taste good.

INGREDIENTS8 grams red habanero peppers, seeded, deveined, and very finely sliced52 grams red serrano peppers, seeded, deveined, and very finely sliced140 grams green jalapeño peppers, seeded, deveined, and very finely sliced250 ml pure ethanol (200 proof; 195 is fine)100 ml filtered water

EQUIPMENTTwo 7.5-gram N2O chargers

PROCEDURECombine the sliced peppers and alcohol in a half-liter whipper. Add one charger andshake; add the second charger and shake. Infuse for a total of 5 minutes, shakingoccasionally. Vent. Add the water and allow to rest 1 minute (listen for bubbles).Strain the liquid and press on the peppers to extract liquid. Allow to rest 10 minutesbefore use.YIELD: OVER 90% (315 ML)

This is how peppers should be sliced for rapid hot pepper tinctures.

I seed and devein peppers whenever I use them for cocktails.

Rapid Black Pepper TinctureI like black pepper in drinks, but I don’t like the way floating pepper looks or howhard pepper is to dose consistently. This tincture is a good way to go. I use a varietyof peppers and near-peppers in this tincture, and it has quite a kick. The base isMalabar black pepper, grown in India and known for its pungency. On top of theMalabar I add Tellicherry pepper, another Indian peppercorn that is world-renowned.It has a more complex and interesting aroma than the Malabar but doesn’t provide asmuch of a wallop. A small amount of dried green peppercorns brings some freshness. Ialso add a small amount of grains of paradise, which are not botanically related toblack pepper but have been used like black pepper for centuries. Last I add cubebs,another pepper-similar spice, which was wildly popular in the Middle Ages. Unlikegrains of paradise, cubebs are closely related to black pepper. They have an aromaticresiny note I like a lot. All these ingredients can be purchased at spice shops or online.

I use this tincture in the Lemon Pepper Fizz here.

INGREDIENTS200 ml neutral vodka (40% alcohol by volume)15 grams Malabar black peppercorns10 grams Tellicherry black peppercorns5 grams green peppercorns3 grams grains of paradise2 grams cubebs

EQUIPMENTTwo 7.5-gram N2O chargers

PROCEDUREPulse all the dry ingredients in a spice grinder. The pepper should remain somewhatcoarse; the finer the grind, the fierier the infusion will be. Place the peppers and thealcohol in a half-liter whipper and rapid infuse with one charger. Shake for severalseconds and then add the second charger. Shake for several seconds more and allowto infuse for 5 minutes. Vent and allow the bubbling to stop. Strain through a coffeefilter and press out any extra liquid.YIELD: 80% (160 ML)

Black pepper tincture ingredients clockwise from top: grains of paradise, Malabar black peppercorns,Tellicherry black peppercorns, green peppercorns, and cubebs.

Grind the pepper mixture to this texture. The finer the grind, the hotter the tincture will be.

Rapid Hops TinctureHops are the flowers that give beer its bitterness. You can get a bewildering array ofhops at any home-brew shop. If you are a beer aficionado, you will no doubt alreadyhave your own favorite variety. Any cocktail that could use some of that beerlikepunch will be well served by this tincture. I like it in grapefruit-juice-based cocktails,and also in plain old seltzer water.

The bitterness of hops comes from acids. The most important bitter acids areknown as alpha acids, or humulones. Hops are typically boiled for a long time toextract those alpha acids and convert them into isohumulones through a chemicalprocess called isomerization. It is those isohumulones that do the real bittering.Remember, for bitter you need boiling. The downside: hops’ aroma comes fromvolatile essential oils that evaporate or alter when boiled. So to add back hop aroma,brewers add more hops after the boiling process.

You have three choices when making a hops tincture in an iSi. If you want areally bitter tincture, put the pressurized whipper in simmering water. Unfortunately,boiling the tincture destroys the fresh aroma of the hops. You’d think that the aromawould be preserved because the iSi whipper is a sealed system that preventsevaporation, but it isn’t. Hot hops tinctures have that characteristic beery bitterness.To maximize hop aroma, you should make the tincture cold; that is your second option.I like cold hops tinctures a lot but don’t expect them to add a lot of bitterness. Yourthird option—the one I recommend—is to do a dual infusion: infuse once hot, vent,and infuse again cold. It is a bit of a pain, but worth it.

You may use more than one hops variety in this recipe if you like—one forbitterness, one for aroma, or a combination of different hops for both purposes. I usejust Simcoe, which has a very high bittering potential and an aroma that I like.

Luckily for the tincture maker (that is, you), brewers are very particular about the

amount of bitterness they add to their beer, so all hops are codified by their quantity ofbitter acids. Their specs are given in terms of percentages of alpha acids (thehumulones) and beta acids. When comparing bittering potential for tinctures, you cansafely ignore the beta acids and look only at the alpha. Simcoe hops have an alphaacid content of 12 to 14 percent—mega-super-high. Many well-known hops are in the6 percent range. If you are using a less bitter hop, you should increase the amount ofhops you use accordingly.

One last important note: do not expose this tincture to bright light. It is possiblethat UV light will cause it to get skunked owing to a photochemical reaction betweenhop acids, riboflavin (vitamin B), and trace amino acid impurities, which forms MBT(3-methylbut-2-ene-1-thiol). MBT is some superstinky stuff that you can detect inminute quantities. If you have ever had skunky beer, you know what I’m talking about.If you haven’t, consider yourself lucky. Cold-infused hops tinctures are lesssusceptible to skunking than hot-infused hops, but either way, I store hops tinctures instainless flasks.

INGREDIENTS FOR HOT OR COLD HOPS TINCTURE250 ml neutral vodka (40% alcohol by volume)15 grams fresh Simcoe hops

EQUIPMENTTwo 7.5-gram N2O chargers

PROCEDUREAdd the vodka and hops to the whipper, charge with one charger, and shake forseveral seconds. Add the second charger and shake for an additional 30 seconds.

If making a hot tincture: Place the whipper in simmering water. Allow it to simmerfor 30 minutes, then place it in ice water and cool it down to room temperature. Thecooling should take 5 minutes.

If making a cold tincture: Allow to rest for 30 minutes, agitating occasionally.

Vent and allow the bubbling to stop. Strain through a coffee filter and press out anyextra liquid. Store in a light-tight flask.YIELD: 85% (212 ML)

INGREDIENTS FOR DUAL HOT AND COLD HOPS TINCTURE30 grams fresh Simcoe hops divided into two 15 gram piles300 ml neutral vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

EQUIPMENTThree 7.5-gram N2O chargers

PROCEDUREAdd 15 grams of hops and the vodka to a half-liter whipper, charge with a charger,and shake for several seconds. Place the whipper in simmering water and allow tosimmer for 30 minutes. Transfer the whipper to ice water and cool it down to roomtemperature, about 5 minutes. Vent. Return any liquid expelled from the ventingprocedure to the whipper, add the remaining 15-gram pile of hops, charge with acharger, and shake for several seconds. Add the third charger and shake for anadditional 30 seconds. Allow to rest for 30 minutes, agitating occasionally. Vent andallow the bubbling to stop. Strain through a coffee filter and press any extra liquidfrom the hops. Store in a light-tight flask.YIELD: 85% (212 ML)

15 grams of Simcoe hops, a very bitter hop. You will need twice this amount if you opt for the dual hot andcold hops tincture.

SCALING UPCream whippers are limited to a capacity of 1 liter. What happens if you want to make a lot of infused liquor?You can use a Cornelius soda keg. Corny kegs (which are described in the Carbonation section, here) canhold up to 5 gallons of product and can easily withstand up to 100 psi (6.9 bars) of pressure. Most Corny kegsare rated for 130 psi (9 bars), but the pressure-relief valve often starts venting before you get there. Unlikewith a cream whipper, into which you inject all the gas right away and with which you lower the pressure byshaking, with a Corny keg you supply a constant pressure—an advantage. And because your gas pressure isconstant, it doesn’t matter whether you fill the keg to the same level each time. Unfortunately, most peoplewho use Corny kegs for infusion will be limited to CO2 for their infusion gas, because N2O is very hard to getin tank form. Suppliers are worried that people will abuse it as a drug and potentially asphyxiate themselves.

Vacuum-Infused Solids: Garnish Magic

If you remember, back at the beginning of this chapter I said that infusion is really twodifferent processes, infusing liquids into solids and getting the flavors out of solidsinto liquids. The latter process is what we have been talking about, using nitrousinfusion. Here I introduce you to infusing liquids into solids using vacuum infusion.

When you vacuum-infuse, you surround a solid ingredient—say a slice ofcucumber—with a flavorful liquid—say gin—and then use a vacuum to suck the airout of the pores of the cucumber. When you release the vacuum, the air can’t rush backinto those pores because they are surrounded by gin, and that gin can’t get out of theway. Instead the atmosphere’s pressure pushes the gin into those empty pores. Thisprocess can make for some delicious and beautiful results. Look at a slice ofcucumber. It is whitish green, with a satiny surface. If you look closely, you can seethat the whiteness possesses a certain granularity; those are the pores in the cucumber.As light hits those pores, it bounces around every which way, and some of it getsscattered back at you. The pores are making the cucumber opaque. When you injectthose pores with liquid, they no longer scatter light, and the cucumber becomestranslucent and jewel-like. For more on this effect, see the sidebar on compression,here.

Before infusion, on left, and after, on right. The difference is stark.

Pineapple core garnishes: converting garbage into something great.

One of the coolest things about vacuum infusion is its ability to turn a product’sfaults or inedible parts into assets. Watermelon rinds, a typical throwaway, becomeexcellent cocktail garnishes when you slice the rind thin and long with a vegetablepeeler and infuse it with a mixture of lime acid and simple syrup. Pineapple cores aregarbage . . . but if you slice the core into long spears and vacuum-infuse them withsimple syrup, they become a welcome change from the stick of sugarcane in a mojito.The firm structure of an underripe pear, a liability for eating out of hand, is a benefitfor vacuum infusion, and the pear is exceedingly good when infused with a strongmixture of yuzu juice and elderflower syrup.

In the cocktail world, vacuum infusion is mostly used for garnishes, with somenotable exceptions. Because you can infuse booze into solid ingredients, you cancreate foods that straddle the line between comestibles and cocktails. My CucumberMartini, an “edible cocktail” of cucumber infused with gin and vermouth, was one ofthe first tech recipes I got attention for (see the full recipe here). I came up with theidea in 2006 while teaching culinary technology at the French Culinary Institute inNew York City. I wasn’t allowed to serve liquor to the students, but I was allowed to“cook” with liquor.

VACUUM MACHINESVacuum infusion is preposterously simple, provided you have a decent vacuummachine, but professional chamber vacuum machines are expensive. Luckily, you

don’t need to break the bank to try vacuum infusion. You can also get okay (though notgreat) results with a hand vacuum pump or with a Vacu Vin wine saver. I’ve evendeveloped a technique for infusing solids with the iSi whipper; see here. If you want aprofessional level of vacuum on the cheap and are handy, you can whomp up a goodvacuum-infusion rig using a refrigeration-repair technician’s vacuum pump; they arepretty inexpensive and can suck a decent vacuum.

Commercial chamber vacuum machine.

If you are fortunate enough to have a professional chamber vacuum machine, apiece of equipment designed to seal bags for storage and cooking, it is by far the bestchoice for vacuum infusion. The bagging function isn’t key to infusion; what’s vital isa good, strong vacuum pump. These machines start at about $1500. Commercialvacuum machines are expensive because they have really good vacuum pumps, andthese pumps are pricey. The pumps in a commercial machine are sealed with oil andcan achieve a fairly high level of vacuum (over 99 percent of the air removed, or 10millibars) in just a few seconds, and withstand the constant use and abuse of theprofessional kitchen.

A new generation of sub-$1000 vacuum machines is on the market now. They allhave weaker vacuum pumps than the pro models, but I’m sure some of them will do adecent infusion job. Really inexpensive electric vacuums like the FoodSaver don’thave the strength to do a proper infusion.

WATERMELON RIND

MAKING A WATERMELON RIND GARNISH: 1, 2, and 3) When you cut up your watermelon, leave therind in rings. 4) Peel the deep green outer rind off the rings. 5) Place your peeler on the ring and startpeeling in circles. 6) Keep going—you want a long, continuous, unbroken strip. 7) To get at the strip withoutcutting you will need to disassemble your peeler. 8) Finally, vacuum infuse with All-Purpose Sweet-and-Sour.(See recipe, here.)

TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR VACUUM INFUSIONCHOOSING THE INGREDIENTS

Porosity: Just as with nitrous infusion, any candidate for vacuum infusionmust be porous—it must have air holes in it. During the vacuum infusionprocess you will fill those pores with liquid. The larger and more numerousthe pores in your solid, the more liquid you can inject into it and the moreflavor your solid will acquire. Watermelon, which has boatloads of airspace in it, soaks up liquids like a sponge. Apples have plenty of air holesin their flesh, but those holes are smaller and more difficult to penetrate, sothey are more difficult to infuse with flavor.

Not only must your ingredient have pores, but those pores must also beavailable to the infusing liquid, which means it’s difficult to infuse throughskins, which are typically less porous than fruit flesh. Unpeeled cherrytomatoes pick up no flavor from vacuum infusion; peel them and they areinfusion champions. Additionally, cutting your ingredients thinner makes iteasier to infuse them, because it makes more pores available to the liquid.

Since vacuum infusion simply fills up existing pores, it never adds a

large volume of liquid to your solid. The pores never constitute a largepercentage of the whole. Because the volume of liquid you inject is small,the flavor must be powerful to make an impact on the flavor of the solid.The less porous your ingredient is, the more powerfully flavored your liquidneeds to be. Using underflavored liquids is a big rookie mistake.

Candidates for vacuum infusion should not be too fragile. Fruits likestrawberries have lots of pores and infuse well, and look awesome at first.After about 5 minutes they start to turn slimy and gross, because theirstructure can’t handle the forces of vacuum infusion. Ripe pears, too, areheavily damaged by vacuum infusion.

Vac Infusion versus Pickling and Influence on Shelf Life: Rapid infusionis not like traditional pickling, in which an acidic, salty, or sugary brinechanges an ingredient’s composition slowly through osmosis and ofteneffectively preserves the product. Because vacuum infusion doesn’tradically alter the composition of your solid ingredient, it can’t preserve itthe way a traditional pickling process would. Remember that.

On the flip side, if you vacuum-infuse something and then let it sitaround for a long time in the fridge—overnight, for a couple days, whatever—then the composition of the flesh of your solids will change, just as intraditional pickling, because of osmotic effects and diffusion. Sometimesthat is okay. Apples do not lose their texture when stored for a long timeafter infusion. Sometimes, however, texture is damaged. In the CucumberMartini recipe, I tell you to eat the cucumber slices within 2 hours. Beyondthat time osmosis will cause the water in the cucumber’s cells to leach outand dilute the gin. The consequence will be a loss of turgor. In other words,the cucumber will get sad and floppy.

GETTING READY: THE TEMPERATUREAnything you plan to vacuum-infuse must be cold. Cold. Not lukewarm, not tepid, notcool, but cold—fridge-cold at least (34°–40°F, 1°–4.4°C). That includes the solid youare infusing and the liquid you are infusing with. Trying to infuse too warm is the mostcommon vacuum-infusion mistake I see, and I see it a lot. The result is messyboilovers and poor infusions. Read on for the full explanation, or take my word for itand skip to the next section.

Here’s a property of vacuums that you need to understand: applying a vacuumreduces the boiling temperature of liquids. Boiling isn’t just about temperature, it isabout a combination of temperature and pressure. As you know from reading theinstructions for a boxed cake (yes, you have), when you cook in the mountains you

have to alter the recipe, because water boils at a lower temperature at high altitudesowing to lower atmospheric pressures. A commercial vacuum machine can createpressures much lower than you experience on the highest mountains, as low as thesurface of Mars (6 millibars)—and we all know what happened to ArnoldSchwarzenegger in Total Recall when he got shot onto the surface of Mars: his bloodstarted to boil.

The water in this vacuum machine is at just 9 degrees Celsius, yet it is boiling, violently, because thepressure is so low.

Why does pulling a vacuum reduce the boiling point? The molecules in a liquidare bouncing around all the time. The temperature of that liquid is a function of theaverage speed of those molecules. Faster speeds equal higher temperature. Aside fromthe attraction the liquid molecules have to each other, what keeps those bouncingmolecules in the liquid phase is the pressure of the atmosphere tamping them down. Atany given time, some molecules have enough speed to leave the liquid, which is whatcauses evaporation—and evaporative cooling. As the high-speed molecules leave, therest of the molecules have a lower average speed, so the liquid is colder. Below theboiling point, however, an average-speed molecule is more likely to stay in the liquidthan leave it as a vapor molecule. Boiling happens when the pressure is so low or thetemperature is so high that the average molecule of liquid is equally likely to leave theliquid as to stay in it. When we pull a vacuum and lower the pressure, we lower theboiling point of the liquid. How much we lower the boiling point depends on how

good our vacuum pumps are.

The vacuum pumps we use to infuse can easily reduce the pressure enough to boilwater at room temperature, and even at fridge temperature. The vacuum boiling isn’traising the water’s temperature, it is lowering it by evaporative cooling. One of myfavorite demonstrations is to boil some room-temperature water in a vacuum machineand then invite a student to put her hand in it. In any group there are always a fewpeople who believe that the water will burn them and can be convinced otherwiseonly by placing their hands in the cold, just-boiled water.

What this means to you, the prospective vacuum infuser, is that all your productsmust be cold—really cold—if you want to get good results. If your products are not atleast refrigerator temperature when you start, you will be boiling your product beforeyou can achieve the right vacuum levels. Alcohol boils at a lower temperature thanwater does, so vacuum machines have an even easier time boiling alcohol—whichmeans that alcohol should be as cold as you can get it without freezing your solids. Ican’t tell you how often I see people breaking this rule. Cold! Cold! Cold!

CLEANING VACUUM MACHINESCommercial vacuum machines use pumps that are sealed with oil. As the pump is used, water and otherliquids end up getting trapped in the oil, substantially reducing the performance of the pump. All oil-sealedvacuum pumps have a window that lets you see the oil’s condition. Clean oil looks like . . . oil. Contaminatedoil has liquid emulsified in it and looks like salad dressing. You can clean the oil by running the pump forseveral minutes in the open atmosphere (without building up a vacuum); all machines have some way to dothis, usually by propping the lid open a bit. The pump heats up, making it easier for the contamination to boilaway; the air streaming through the pump strips it out. Now you have clean oil again.

VACUUM MACHINE OIL: the oil is the lifeblood of the vacuum machine. Contaminated oil (top) isfull of water and reduces the vacuum level your machine can achieve. Clean the oil by running yourmachine for five to ten minutes with the lid open—boiling out the water and cleaning the oil (bottom).

GO: THE SUCKING TIMEVacuum infusion takes more time than you might think. Let’s say you want to infusegood dark rum into ripe pineapple spears—and believe me, you do. You cover thecold pineapple with cold rum and apply a vacuum. The vacuum will suck the air out ofthe pineapple pores and cause the pores to open up. The air from the pores willbubble up through the rum and evacuate the system through the vacuum pump. Youwant to suck a serious vacuum, because you want to get as much air out of thatpineapple as you possibly can. If you don’t suck out all the air, you won’t infuse asmuch liquid into the pineapple. It takes longer than you think to get all the air out ofthose pores. Even if your vacuum machine reaches full vacuum, you can’t be sureyou’ve gotten all the air out of the pineapple—just that you’ve gotten all the free airout of your chamber. Suck longer. Remember: suck longer.

When I do vacuum infusion, I typically suck a vacuum for about a minute and thenturn off the machine, leaving the product under vacuum. (All commercial machinesallow you to do this. Most of the time you just switch the machine off; don’t use theStop button.) Even after the vacuum pump is turned off you will see air escaping in theform of tiny bubbles. The bubbling will last for several minutes. Why turn off thepump? Two reasons: first, if your pump is good, your liquid will cold-boil no matterhow cold it is, and continuous boiling strips your liquid of flavor (in essence, you aredistilling); second, the vaporized liquid you produce by running the pump a long time

will contaminate your pump oil, leading to poor performance.

Now comes the fun part: letting the air back in.

As the air rushes into the vacuum chamber watch the gin and vermouth get injected into these cucumbers.

THE MOMENT OF TRUTHBefore you sucked the air out of the pores with the vacuum, they were at the samepressure as the atmosphere around us, roughly 14.6 psi (1,013 millibars). After thevacuum is applied, the pores will have almost no pressure in them. Releasing thevacuum causes air to rush back into the chamber of your vacuum machine. That airbegins to compress those pores with the force of 14.6 pounds per square inch. Thatdoesn’t sound like much, but 14.6 psi of pressure on a 4-inch-square plate is 233pounds. Instead of crushing the pores, however, the pressure injects the liquid—rum inthis case—into the porous solid, the pineapple. What you’re left with is vacuum-infused pineapple, which is straight-up delicious and gorgeous. You will want to lookat the process as it happens. I have been doing it for almost a decade and it never getsold.

If you find that your product has not fully infused with one infusion, you canrepeat the cycle. Hard ingredients like apples or thickly cut ingredients tend to requiretwo or more cycles. If you run more than two or three cycles and your liquid isalcoholic, you risk the loss of some flavor through unintentional distillation. You’llalso be adding more flavors of the solid to the liquid, making the infusion go bothways.

MARSHMALLOWSWhenever I demonstrate vacuum machines, I blow up marshmallows. If you have a vacuum machine, youshould do this experiment as well—it will firmly fix the principles of the vacuum machine in your mind. Throwmarshmallows into a vacuum chamber and they will expand to several times their original size. What ishappening is that the pressure inside the vacuum chamber is being reduced, and the air that is trapped insidethe marshmallows begins to expand, making the marshmallows blow up like balloons. Everybody loves thisvisual, but the expansion isn’t the important part for vacuum infusion. Keep sucking a vacuum on thosemarshmallows after they expand and they’ll start to shrink again as the trapped, expanded air slowly leaks outof them. Eventually the majority of the trapped air escapes the marshmallows and they shrink back to theirnormal size, but it takes a while. That’s the important part. It shows that it takes longer than you think to getthe air out of pores. The same is true of all the ingredients we infuse: it takes longer than you think to get the

air out.

An enjoyable marshmallow-only bonus is that when you finally release the vacuum and allow air back into thechamber, the marshmallows get smashed. Just as it was difficult to suck the air out of the marshmallows, it isdifficult to get it back in. When the air hits the marshmallows all at once, the squishy little guys don’t have thestructure to stand up to the force and they auto-compress, even without a bag. Very few things auto-compress. I like this demo: it seems to stick in people’s minds and visually demonstrates the principles of thevacuum.

PUTTING A MARSHMALLOW IN A VACUUM MACHINE: At 0 seconds the marshmallow is at rest.As the vacuum machine starts running, the marshmallow expands as the air bubbles in themarshmallow expand. The marshmallow reaches maximum size at 8 seconds. Watch what happensbetween 12 and 24 seconds—the marshmallow shrinks. It shrinks because the air inside themarshmallow slowly escapes. The same is true for the fruits and vegetables you put in the vacuummachine—they may not expand, but they have trapped air inside that takes a long time to escape.Unlike fruit, marshmallows will dramatically crush when the air comes back into the chamber at 28seconds.

COMPRESSIONIf you suck the air out of a porous food, then seal it in a bag without adding any liquid and let the air press onthat bag, the full force of the atmosphere presses on those pores with a force of 14.6 psi (1013 millibars).There is no infusion, because there is no liquid. Instead the pores just get crushed flat. The result is a looksimilar to that of infused products—think jewelry or stained glass, but with no flavors added. This technique iscalled vacuum compression or texture modification, although the texture isn’t changed all that much. I rarelyuse this technique, but some people love it. If you want to make a piece of fruit look awesome but don’t wantto add any flavor, compression is a good option. Remember, to do compression, you must seal your ingredientin a bag. Thicker items need multiple compression cycles to finish. No need to reopen the bag; just suck avacuum on the sealed bag till it starts to puff up (from the vapor coming off your product), then let the airback in. This is the equivalent of lifting a gentle brick and dropping it again and again on your ingredient. Thepores you crushed on the last cycle are now uncompressible, and the current cycle of letting the air back inwill crush a fresh batch of pores.

USING THE VACUUM TO MAKE INFUSED LIQUIDSIf you have just run a single infusion cycle with the vacuum machine, the liquid will have picked up very littleflavor from the solid ingredient. Let the infused solid rest in the liquid for a few minutes and then suck asecond vacuum. Don’t worry that your product isn’t as cold as it was before. This time you actually want theliquid to boil a bit. Why? Because now you are using the boiling to extract the flavorful liquid from the poresinside the solid ingredient!

In addition to the liquid boiling, there will be, despite your best efforts, some residual air inside your product,and that too, when it expands, will help push flavored liquid out of the ingredient. That is how you use avacuum machine to flavor the liquid. When you let the air back in, fresh liquid will be reinfused into the solidand you can repeat the process again. You can run this process several times, but I caution you against more

than three cycles, or you might notice some flavor loss from distillation. If your product is sealed in a bag,however, you can run the cycles indefinitely; once the bag is sealed, no flavor can leave. The advantage ofusing the vacuum for this process is that you can make liters of liquid at a time without having to buychargers. The disadvantage is that you don’t have control over pressure or temperature the way you do withan iSi.

Making the Cucumber Martini: The Technique in Recipe FormHere is the first alcoholic recipe I ever devised for a vacuum machine.

INGREDIENTS62⁄3 ounces (200 ml) cold gin12⁄3 ounces (50 ml) cold Dolin Blanc vermouth1⁄3 ounce (10 ml) cold simple syrupDash of cold saline solution2 chilled cucumbers (577 grams)1 limeMaldon saltCelery seeds or caraway seeds

EQUIPMENTChamber vacuum machine or equivalent vacuum systemVacuum bagMicroplane

PROCEDUREEverything in this recipe needs to be thoroughly chilled. Combine the gin, vermouth,simple syrup, and saline solution. (I add simple syrup to this recipe even though amartini contains no added sugar because the bitterness of the cucumber requires it.)Chill the mix till it is cold—between 32° and 40°F (0° and 4.5°C).

Refrigerate your cucumbers before you slice them. You don’t want to fabricate yourcucumber planks and then have them sit around in your fridge chilling, because someof the pores will collapse over time, damaging texture and lessening the infusioneffect. While I’m on the subject of cucumbers, here in the United States two mainvarieties of cucumber are available: hothouse, also known as English cucumbers—long, skinny, and wrapped individually in plastic—and select, typically piled in bulk

bins in the produce aisle. Use the select variety for this recipe. I really dislikehothouse cucumbers. People claim the skin is better on hothouse cucumbers, but wedon’t care about that, since this recipe calls for peeling. People say hothousecucumbers are seedless, a lie obvious to anyone who has eaten one. Hothousecucumbers are also more expensive. But the real reason not to use hothouse cucumbersis that they have very little flavor, and what flavor they do have is bitter.

Slice the chilled cucumbers into 28 rectangular planks. First peel them, then slice intocylinders roughly 4 inches (100 mm) long, then cut those cylinders into 8 radialwedges. Slice the seeds off lengthwise, flip over, and slice off the curved outersurface off the cucumber. Voilà: flat planks (see the picture). You should have 210grams.

Place the cucumbers in the vacuum bag with the liquor mixture. You only need a bagbecause the quantity of liquid is so small. The bag holds the liquid in close contactwith the cucumbers, which need to be covered with the martini mix for the infusion towork. If you were making a lot of cucumbers, you could just put the ingredients in apan instead, as long as the pan fit in your vacuum.

Suck a vacuum on the cucumbers and booze for at least 1 minute and then turn off themachine, allowing the ingredients to remain under vacuum. Notice that bubbles arestill coming out of the cucumbers. That’s good. Wait for the bubbles to stop forming,and then turn the vacuum machine back on to allow air back into the chamber. Makesure to watch what happens. As the air rushes in, the liquid will inject into thecucumbers, turning them into martinis.

Drain the cucumbers (drink the booze). Pat the cucumber martinis dry with a towel.Zest some lime peel on top and sprinkle with Maldon salt and a few celery seeds orcaraway seeds. Eat the cucumber martinis within 2 hours, after which they lose someof their crunch.

FABRICATING CUCUMBER PLANKS: 1) Peel, then cut the cucumbers into 2 cylinders. 2) Cut eachcylinder into 8 wedges. 3) Cut the seeds off the wedges to create one flat side. Eat the seeds—they aredelicious. 4) Flip the wedges over and flatten the rounded outside portion. 5) All the cucumber stages in onephoto.

MAKING THE CUCUMBER MARTINI WITH THE iSiIn nitrous infusion, liquid is forced into the pores of ingredients under pressure and then that same liquidviolently boils out when pressure is released. When you are trying to inject the liquid into the solid, the boilingout is a problem. The liquid doesn’t stay inside the solid, where you want it. The solution: put your ingredientsin a Ziploc bag so the nitrous never gets into your products in the first place. The disadvantages of thistechnique are that you can’t make too many at a time, you have to spend money on chargers every time youwant to infuse, and you can only infuse objects that you can fit into the neck of the iSi. The main advantages:your products don’t need to be ice-cold when you use the iSi, and—this is the biggie— you don’t need to owna vacuum machine.

EQUIPMENT1 liter iSi cream whipper2 chargers (either CO2 or N2O)3 sandwich-size Ziploc bagsMicroplane

INGREDIENTSSame as the Cucumber Martini

PROCEDURECombine the gin, vermouth, simple syrup, and saline solution. Prepare thecucumbers, then divide the liquid and the cucumber planks between the threeZiploc bags. Remove the air from the bags by immersing them in water. To dothis, get a container of water larger than the bags. Seal each bag starting from oneside, and allow only the corner to remain unsealed. Put your finger in the openspot and hold the bag up from that point so the bag looks diamond-shaped.Immerse the bag in water till the water level almost reaches the open spot byyour finger while freeing any air pockets in the submerged bag with your freehand. Seal the bag. There should be almost no air in the bags.

Roll up the bags and put them in the iSi whipper. Add water to the fill line (thismakes the venting procedure gentler on your product). Seal the whipper andcharge with one charger. Agitate mildly for a couple of seconds and allow theproduct to rest for 2 minutes. Slowly vent the whipper. Go slowly. If you vent tooquickly, you’ll spoil the infusion. The air that was inside the cucumbers willexpand again and force out some of the gin-and-vermouth mixture, reducingflavor and spoiling the look of the cucumbers.

Allow the bags to rest in the whipper for 5 minutes. During this time, air willcontinue to leave the cucumbers through pathways created by the initial pressure-and-vent cycle. After 5 minutes, apply the second charger, agitate mildly, andallow to rest 2 minutes. Vent slowly and remove the bag from the whipper. Thistime there isn’t enough residual air in the cucumbers to force the liquid back out.

Drain the cucumbers. Zest some lime peel on top and sprinkle with Maldon saltand celery seeds. Use the cucumbers within 2 hours or they will lose some oftheir crunch.

This technique can also be used in a dry bag for compression, and can be scaledup in a Cornelius keg (see “Scaling Up,” here).

MAKING THE CUCUMBER MARTINI IN AN ISI: Put the martini mix and cucumbers into a Ziplocbag and seal all but one corner. 1) Hold the bag as shown. 2) Slowly push the bag underwater whileexcluding air from the bag. Just before the bag is completely submerged, seal the bag. 3) It shouldlook like this, with little internal air. 4) Shove the Ziplocs into your ISI then fill to the fill line withwater. 5) Charge, shake, and wait 2 minutes. Slowly vent the whipper. 6) If you stopped now, thecucumbers would look bad—like this. 7) Wait 5 minutes, charge and shake again and allow to rest 2minutes. 8) Vent slowly and you are done.

SOME GOOD CHOICES FOR INFUSIONHere are some suggestions to start with. Use them individually as garnishes orcombine several to make an alcoholic fruit salad.

All-Purpose Sweet-and-SourThis is a good sweet-and-sour syrup useful for infusing things like watermelon rinds,underripe pears, and so on.MAKES 1 LITER

INGREDIENTS400 ml simple syrup (or 250 grams granulated sugar and 250 grams filtered

water)400 ml freshly strained lime juice, lemon juice, or lime acid (here)200 ml filtered waterHealthy pinch of salt

PROCEDUREMix everything together and go.

MELONSWatermelons infuse amazingly well. They are incredibly porous. They almost infusethemselves, which is why football fans for generations have punched a hole in awatermelon and poured a bottle of vodka into it to sneak liquor into stadiums. I don’treally like the flavor of watermelon infused with liquor. If you infuse watermelon withwatermelon juice, you get superwatermelon. It tastes less like a watermelon and morelike honeydew. The rind is, as I have stated before, really good infused with the all-purpose sweet-and-sour mix. Crunchy!

Cantaloupe and honeydew melons infuse very well, but since these two foods arethe only foods I truly dislike, I am not qualified to recommend them.

TOMATOES

Vacuum-infused cherry tomatoes make a great garnish for savory cocktails. TheJalapeño Tequila recipe here is nice served as a shot with a salted rim and a cherrytomato flash-infused with salt, vinegar, and sugar. Before you infuse, you shouldplunge the tomatoes a couple at a time into simmering water for 20 seconds and thenput them directly in ice water. If you leave them in the water longer, they’ll cook. Ifyou add too many at once, your water temperature will drop and screw up your timing.After they have chilled, use a sharp knife to peel them. Cherry tomatoes can be quick-pickled in the fridge in a couple of hours without the vacuum, but they won’t be aspunchy.

FOR THE INFUSION LIQUID100 grams granulated sugar20 grams salt5 grams coriander seeds5 grams yellow mustard seeds5 grams allspice berries3 grams crushed red pepper (omit if garnishing Jalapeño Tequila)100 grams filtered water500 grams white vinegar

PROCEDURECombine all the dry ingredients in a small pan and add the water. Bring to a boil whilestirring, making sure the salt and sugar dissolve totally. Remove from the heat and addthe vinegar. Cover and chill in the fridge till cold. Vacuum-infuse as usual.

PEARSAs I mentioned, pears must be firm for you to infuse them properly. They work bestwhen cut into thin strips or disks, and look fantastic as a garnish. They like to beinfused with sweet-and-sour mixes. I have also infused pear with Poire William togood effect. Port-infused pears are not as good as you think they will be, and Asianpears do not infuse as well as Western ones.

CUCUMBERSI have already covered these ad nauseum. In addition to gin, they can be infused withaquavit—which is delicious—or with sweeter mixtures, in which case they take onmore of the qualities of a fruit and can be paired with tarter fruits in an alcoholic fruitsalad. I like to infuse cucumbers right before I serve them.

APPLES

Apples don’t pick up a lot of flavor, so intense liquids are called for. I typically infuseapples for culinary applications and use flavored oils such as curry oil. You might betempted to infuse a beautiful red liquor like Campari into apples, because red applesare cool, but the color will not satisfy you. You can flash-infuse apples with beetjuice. This makes a very pretty garnish when sliced thin.

PINEAPPLEI’ve already mentioned that ripe pineapple infuses well with dark rum, and pineapplecore infuses well with simple syrup. Ripe pineapple also infuses well with aperitifssuch as Lillet Blanc. I don’t recommend infusing pineapple itself with syrups unlessthe pineapple is extremely underripe. Infused pineapple makes a great garnish for builtdrinks on the rocks, especially old-fashioned variants. One thing to note aboutpineapples: they ripen from the bottom up. Next time you cut up a pineapple, taste apiece from near the base and a piece near the leaves. The one near the base will beradically sweeter. The base also ferments first. I always cut pineapple garnishes sothat every piece extends the whole length of the pineapple; otherwise one person’spineapple is very different from that of the person next to them. If the top is reallyunderripe, just cut it off and infuse it separately with some added sugar. Likewise, ifthe bottom is overripe, remove it. Infused pineapple lasts a long time stored in itsinfusion liquid in the fridge.

FABRICATING A PINEAPPLE: When you cut like this, there is very little waste. Pineapples are sweeterand riper at the bottom than at the top. The spears on the lower left are cut from top to bottom so each oneshould taste the same as the next, with some of the less-ripe top and sweeter bottom. In the lower right is thepineapple core, cut and ready to infuse for garnish. I peel the pineapple after I cut it into quarters—you loseless good pineapple meat that way.

Pineapple spears infused with rum in a vacuum bag. If you don’t want to use rum, Lillet Blanc works too.

Those same pineapples, ready for service.

ClarificationDefinition, History, TechniqueWHAT IS CLARIFICATION?Liquids can be crystal clear, completely opaque, or somewhere in between. Cleardoesn’t mean colorless. A glass of red wine can be both deeply colored, thanks to thepigments dissolved in it, and clear. Unclear liquids are actually suspensions,containing particles that reflect and scatter light in a random pattern that makes theliquid appear milky. Clarification removes these particles. It pays to remember thedifference between dissolved substances, which don’t cloud a liquid but may addcolor, and suspended particles, which are not truly dissolved and scatter light.

It takes a ridiculously small percentage of suspended crud—way less than 1percent—to make a liquid cloudy. Good clarification gets rid of all, not most, of thelight-scattering doodads.

From berry to clear juice.

WHY CLARIFY?Why clarify? Why breathe? I love the look of crystal-clear liquids. I much prefer abeautiful limpid drink to a murky one. (Remember, clear doesn’t mean colorless—think brown liquors.) But clarification’s not just about looks: it is also necessary forgood carbonation. Particles floating around in your drink provide places for errantbubbles to form. Those errant bubble-making particles will wreak foaming havoc inyour drink and reduce the level of carbonation you can achieve. When you squeeze alime into a gin and tonic, you witness immediate frothing and bubbling. Unacceptable!

One path to clear grapefruit juice.

Clarification also alters the texture of drinks by removing solids and reducingbody. Mouth feel is an aspect of cocktails that is often overlooked. I don’t want tochew on my drinks, so I almost never use purees without clarifying them first. (I like atraditional bloody Mary, but that’s about it.)

I first started worrying about clarification in 2005, when I was obsessing overmaking the absolute best lime juice for gin and tonics. I didn’t know it at the time, but Icouldn’t have chosen a more difficult clarifying problem. You need to clarify limejuice quickly because lime juice doesn’t last, but many clarification techniques taketime. You can’t use too much heat because heat ruins the flavor of lime, but mostclarification uses heat. The particles in lime juice are very small, and small particlesare hard to filter. Lime juice is very acidic, and acidity thwarts some clarificationtricks.

Turns out that if you can clarify lime juice, you can clarify almost everything else.My lime-juice-clarification efforts eventually unlocked the gin and tonic I sought, anda whole lot more. The journey included messing with filtration, setting gels, usingequipment such as centrifuges, and searching out ingredients such as enzymes andwine-fining agents. These days I can—and do—clarify almost everything. It is a bit ofa sickness.

CLARIFICATION TECHNIQUES: THE THEORYClarification is all about removing suspended particles, separating clear liquids fromcloudy solids. It is mainly mechanical in nature. There are three primary means.Filtration blocks particles, allowing clear liquid to run through. In gelation, you trapparticles in a gel and coax out the clear liquid. And with separation by density, youassist or augment gravity to allow particles to settle out of the liquid.

First, some theory and history. If you truly have no patience for learning, skip tothe clarification flowcharts here for the how-to’s.

FILTER CLARIFICATIONUp-front confession: I hate filtration as a clarification technique. Industrially, filtrationworks great. In your kitchen, not so much. Clarification requires filters much finer thanthe ones you use for coffee, and they clog frustratingly fast. Sure, filter aids andmultiple filter setups can help solve these clogging problems, and you can purchasespecial charged filters that clog less, but let me reiterate: filter clarification is a drag.

GEL CLARIFICATIONGel clarification works really well. Simply put, you trap your liquid in a gel and theninduce it to leak. This process is called syneresis. The particles that were making yourliquid cloudy remain trapped in the gel, and the stuff that leaks out is clear. The gelacts like a massive 3-D filter that never clogs. Gel clarification doesn’t requireexpensive equipment and can be scaled for large quantities.

There are several different ways to clarify with gels.

Old-School Gels: Egg whites and lean ground meat are the original gel-based clarifiers, traditionally used to clarify stocks into consommés. Theproteins coagulate and form a gel-like raft through which you continuouslyladle your simmering stock. Eventually this raft traps all the cloudy bits andleaves you with a perfectly clarified consommé. This process has manydrawbacks for cocktail clarification. It is tedious and prone to error,requires prolonged heating (which can change or destroy delicate flavors),and adds meat flavors where you probably don’t want them.

Freeze-Thaw Gelatin: A little over a decade ago, some European chefs,most notably Heston Blumenthal, noticed that when meat stocks containinggelatin were frozen solid and then allowed to thaw in the refrigerator, a raftof gelatin goo held on to cloudy particles and the liquid that dripped out wasclear. Freeze-thaw clarification was born. In the early years of the century,on this side of the pond, New York chef Wylie Dufresne realized that thistechnique isn’t limited to stock—you can add gelatin to almost anything, andthen freeze and thaw it to get a clear liquid. This observation revolutionizedthe clarification world. Soon I was freeze-thaw clarifying anything I couldget my hands on.

I soon discovered the major drawbacks of freeze-thaw gelatinclarification. It’s a bit of a chore, and it ain’t quick. You have to freeze yourgelatin mixture solid—I mean solid. That takes a day. You must then slowlythaw this frozen block in the fridge, which can take another two days. If youtry to cheat and thaw on the counter, the fragile gelatin raft (the thing that’s

holding back all the cloudy nastiness) will break, and it’s all over. Also,you can’t start using the stuff that drips out first while you are waiting for therest to thaw, because the clarified liquid at the beginning is too concentratedand the stuff at the end tastes like water.

Why is this process so finicky? With freeze-thaw gelatin clarification,you use 5 grams of gelatin per liter. A 5-gram-per-liter gelatin mixture is,disconcertingly, still a liquid, not a gel like Jell-O. As the gelatin mixturefreezes, the pure water starts to freeze first, and everything else—the gelatinand any color, flavor, sugar, acid, what have you—becomes more and moreconcentrated as the water continues to freeze. Eventually this solutionconcentrates enough to form a delicate gel network, the source of the raft.Then that network freezes solid as well. As the gelatin network freezes, itgets torn apart by ice crystals. As it thaws, that torn network retains justenough structure to hold back solids in a sludgelike mass but to leak clearliquid like a sieve.

If everything goes according to plan, this system works great, butbecause your mix is a liquid at the beginning, it’s hard to tell if you’veachieved the right consistency before you freeze. You’d like to make a firmgel to increase your peace of mind, but you can’t. If your mix were moresolid from the get-go—say the consistency of Jell-O, which is self-supporting and rigid at 14 grams of gelatin per liter—it would be easier towork with, but the network would not break down enough during the thaw,the gel raft would remain too solid, and the dripping clear liquid that is thepoint of all this hassle would never materialize.

FREEZE-THAW CLARIFICATION: The frozen grapefruit juice block at the top left thaws to the nastylooking raft at the bottom. What drips out is the beautifully clear juice at right.

The upshot is, you never know if everything went right until it is toolate. You must wait three days to verify whether your labors yielded alovely clear liquid or a soupy mess. There has to be a better way.

Freeze-Thaw Agar: I don’t know who first started using agar instead ofgelatin for freeze-thaw clarification, but what an awesome idea. Agar is aseaweed-based gelling agent, so, unlike gelatin, it is vegetarian-friendly.Agar gels are very porous—much more so than gelatin—so they leak muchmore, allowing you to form self-supporting gels and still clarify. Because areal gel is formed before the freeze-thaw process begins, you have visualand tactile verification that your clarification will work—a win overgelatin. Because the agar forms a gel, any unfrozen part won’t cloud yourproduct even if you don’t freeze the gel thoroughly—another win. Agar raftsdon’t melt until they get very hot, so you can thaw an agar raft much fasterthan a gelatin raft—major win. One more agar win: it produces, in myestimation, a more sparklingly clear product than gelatin does.

In freeze-thaw clarification the stuff that drips out at the beginning of the thaw (left) is more concentrated inflavor and color than the stuff that drips out at the end (right).

Agar has only one disadvantage compared with gelatin. Gelatin willdissolve into a liquid with only a modicum of heat, while agar must beboiled and held there for several minutes to fully incorporate, which is toomuch heat for many delicate products. There is a fix; see the flowchart here.

What would be better than agar clarification is something faster. Eventhough you can freeze-thaw agar faster than you can freeze and thaw gelatin,the process still takes a couple of days. That’s okay for some things, likestrawberry juice, but unacceptable for lime juice, which you must use theday you make it.

Also, in any freeze-thaw clarification, what drips out changes overtime. The first stuff to thaw is the last stuff that froze: sugars, acids, andother concentrated flavors. As the thawing progresses, the stuff dripping outhas less and less flavor. You need to batch all the drippings over the entireprocess or your flavor will be unbalanced.

For years this problem of slow and uneven processing stuck in mycraw. The solution ended up being very simple.

Quick Agar Clarification: In 2009 I discovered that I could clarify withagar simply by breaking the gel with a whisk to increase the surface areaand letting it leak. Remember, agar gels are very porous—they want to leak.You have to work hard to get them not to leak. So it turned out that freeze-thaw is unnecessary. Extra equipment is unnecessary. Because there is nofreeze-thaw cycle, the first drop of juice you get with this technique tastes

the same as the last. Also, because there is no freezing, you can clarifyotherwise unfreezable booze this way (remember to hydrate the agar inwater first; booze can’t get hot enough). With quick agar clarification,anyone can clarify anything in under an hour, including—finally!—limejuice.

Quick agar isn’t perfect. A bit of skill is involved, and it takes a whileto get the knack. You will see in the how-to flowchart that lots of messyhand-straining through cloth is called for, so quick agar is inconvenient forlarge quantities. It is rarely as perfect as freeze-thaw; some agar usually getsinto the final product and can form visible wisps if left to sit overnight. Forall these faults, however, quick agar remains my go-to technique when Ihave to clarify away from my centrifuge.

WHEN TO USE GELATIN FREEZE-THAWWhen making a drink with meat stock, like a bullshot, always use gelatin freeze-thaw clarification, and not justbecause it makes sense to use the gelatin already present in the stock. With any other clarification method,the stock gelatin remains, and when you reduce the stock to condense the flavors, which you always do forcocktails (I reduce by a factor of 4 or more), it will get gluey and unusable. With gelatin freeze-thaw, youremove the gelatin from the stock as you clarify, so your stock can be reduced a ridiculous amount and stillend up thin and limpid, even when cocktail-cold.

Trick: you’ll probably need to add a little water to your stock before you free-thaw clarify. Most stocks havetoo much gelatin in them to freeze-thaw clarify effectively. At most, you want a stock that just barely gelswhen cold. Even better is a stock that just barely doesn’t gel. After your clear consommé drips out, you canreduce out all the extra water.

For a nice savory shot I like concentrated gelatin-free consommé, centrifuge-clarified tomato water, iSi rapid-infused jalapeño tequila, a pickled cherry tomato, and a healthy dose of salt.

GEL CLARIFICATION RECAPFreeze-thaw agar has some advantages over quick agar clarification: it entails lesslabor, is more foolproof, and produces a product that will never recloud. Butremember, you’ll need a lot of freezer space to make large quantities, and thetechnique takes a couple of days. Quick agar works great for small quantities ofproducts that you want to clarify quickly and use the same day.

The main disadvantage of all gel clarifications is the yield: you will always losesome liquid in the gel raft that remains after clarification. Expect to sacrifice at least aquarter of your product, sometimes more.

GRAVITATIONAL CLARIFICATION: RACKING,CENTRIFUGING, FINING

Most of the time, suspended particles are denser than the liquid they are floating in. Ifunhindered, they will eventually fall to the bottom of the liquid. This behavior is thebasis of separation based on density.

RACKINGIn a liquid in which the particles are large and relatively free to move around, you canemploy the simplest density-separation technique, racking. Just put the liquid in acontainer and let it settle over time. After all the particles settle to the bottom, decantthe clear liquid off the top, and you are done.

You can’t use racking alone very often in practice because many liquids settlevery slowly, and some will never settle at all—at least, not in your lifetime.Sometimes settling won’t occur because particles are too small, sometimes becausetheir movement is blocked by stabilizers in the liquid. Even in liquids that settle fairlyquickly, such as carrot juice, racking can be difficult because the particles don’t forma compact layer at the bottom; they float around near the bottom instead. That floatyzone contains a lot of juice you won’t be able to clarify, so your yield will be lousy. Ifyou are going to clarify by racking, make sure to use round containers. Liquids movingin square containers kick up small particles and ruin the clarification.

CENTRIFUGINGTo get around the problems with racking, I use a centrifuge. Centrifuges spin fluidsrapidly. Anything inside the centrifuge tends to get pushed toward the outside—that’scentrifugal force. Centrifuges are rated by how much force they produce relative to theforce of gravity, and they can produce many thousands of times the force of gravity.They radically exaggerate the difference in density between a liquid and the particlesfloating in it, and drastically increase the speed at which particles settle out of aliquid. The force also tends to smash those particles into a firm cake, called a puck, soyour yield is high. Sweet.

A tube from the under-200 dollar centrifuge filled with crabapple juice that was treated with Pectinex UltraSP-L. The solids are smashed into the bottom and sides of the tube. The compressed solids in a centifugebucket, which you’ll find in larger centrifuges, are called a puck, but in a tube they’re referred to as apellet. It’s easy to rack the clear liquid off the top.

The Problem with Centrifuges: As I write, centrifuges are still esoteric,but that is changing. In 2013, a centrifuge that could handle enough productfor a busy bar (3 liters) cost $8000 and was the size of two microwaves. Asmall unit to play with at home is the size of a toaster and costs a couplehundred bucks. (It works but holds a tiny amount of product and is thereforebasically a toy.) I predict an explosion of centrifuges in the next ten years.Many more people will have them, and a centrifuge the size of a microwavewith enough capacity for a professional will cost less than $1000.Centrifuges are the wave of the juice future.

When I first started using centrifuges, in 2008, I was borrowing time ona superspeed centrifuge at my buddy Professor Kent Kirshenbaum’s NYUlab. It could spin 500 milliliters of juice at 48,000 times the force ofgravity! As you know, I was interested in the holy grail of clarification: limejuice. I hadn’t yet figured out quick agar. I learned some fascinating butdepressing things on that centrifuge. Lime juice doesn’t start clarifying untilyour centrifuge gets to about 27,000 g’s. A centrifuge that can pull 27,000g’s is larger, more expensive, and more dangerous than any centrifuge I’dcare to have at a bar. Even worse, 27,000-g lime juice tastes metallic. At48,000 g’s, lime juice tastes great, but a centrifuge that can do 48,000 g’s iseven less practical for your bar—tens of thousands of dollars and the size ofa washing machine.

I tried clarifying other juices as well: ginger, grapefruit, apple. Not allof them required the full 48,000 g’s, but most juices and purees needed morethan a reasonable centrifuge could muster. Practical bar/restaurantcentrifuges max out at about 4000 g’s. I needed to find a way to get theresults I wanted with a fairly puny ʼfuge. And I did. Here’s how.

Refining the Process: In the cocktail world we mostly clarify purees andjuices from fruits and vegetables. These purees and juices all havesuspended chunks of cells and cell walls composed largely of thepolysaccharides pectin, hemicellulose, and cellulose. These busted-upchunks of cells tend to make juices thick and gloopy, which in turn makesthem difficult to clarify, because they don’t flow or drain well. Pectin inparticular tends to stabilize the particles in juices and purees, making themmore difficult to remove. You need to knock out these stabilizers to free thesuspended particles so you can separate them out.

How do you destabilize a juice? Add enzymes.

Destabilizing: The Magic of SP-L: Ninety-nine percent of the stuff you’llwant to clarify is stabilized by pectin and thickened by busted-up cell parts.Luckily, both of these hindrances can be handled with a single concoction ofenzymes called Pectinex Ultra SP-L. Just call it SP-L. I call it my secretingredient; about 75 percent of my drinks involve SP-L at some point. It is amix of enzymes that are purified from Aspergillus aculeatus, a fungus foundin soil and rotting fruit. Fungi are the world’s champions at enzymaticbreakdown of everything, and A. aculeatus is a great generalist. It producesenzymes that obliterate most things that get in clarification’s way: pectin,hemicellulose, and cellulose.

The strawberry puree on the left was treated with Pectinex Ultra SP-L. The puree on the right is untreated.

SP-L maintains its activity over a wide range of temperatures, pHs, andethanol concentrations. The ethanol bit is extremely important. Manyenzymes don’t work well—or at all—in concentrated alcohol solutions. SP-L does, so you can clarify booze with it. SP-L-treated juices clarify quitewell in a centrifuge that operates at 4000 g’s or even a bit less, so SP-Lmakes reasonable centrifuges worthwhile. SP-L works so well that somejuices can be clarified without a centrifuge. Apple juice with SP-L willsettle on its own enough to rack off clarified juice. I still use a centrifuge onapple juice to increase my yield, but you don’t have to.

Pectinex Ultra SP-L ate the pith off of these grapefruit wedges to make these beautiful suprêmes. This trickworks on all citrus I have tried—including pomelos, which are notoriously difficult to suprême—except limes.

Using SP-L: Using SP-L couldn’t be simpler. I always use 2 milliliters(roughly 2 grams) of SP-L per kilo or liter of juice. That’s twice the amountused industrially, but sometimes I can’t be sure how well my enzymes havebeen stored or how old they are, and both those factors affect potency.Remember that ratio: 2 grams per liter. Never tell someone to add 0.2% SP-L; they will almost always add 20 grams per liter, I don’t know why. Thereally good news is that that 2 grams isn’t critical—little more, little less,no problem. Don’t go enzyme-crazy, though. The stuff on its own tastesfermented and weird. You don’t want a perceptible amount in your juice.Even when you are gel clarifying, using SP-L is often a good idea. Knockingout the stabilizers before you clarify can increase the yield of clarified juiceyou get by 30 percent or more, because thinner products leak out of gelsbetter than thick ones do.

MAKING THE CITRUS VESICLE (GROSS BUT ACCURATE WORD) GARNISH: I use grapefruit herebut the real show-stopper is blood orange: 1) Cover the citrus suprêmes with liquid nitrogen. 2) Make surethe suprêmes are frozen—it will take more liquid nitrogen and time than you think. 3) Smash the suprêmeswith a muddler. 4) They should look like this. 5) Allow them to thaw and 6) use as an elegant garnish on anygin drink.

I was hooked on SP-L from the moment I got my first sample. Like adrug dealer, Novozymes, the manufacturer, gave me the first sample free, butthen I had to pay. Novozymes and its distributers aren’t set up to sellreasonable quantities to normal folk. The smallest amount they will sell—and grudgingly at that—is a 25-liter pail. Twenty-five liters of SP-L isenough to clarify over 12,500 liters of juice and costs $570. Not a bad deal,really, but way more than you need. Luckily, online suppliers have startedselling the stuff in smaller quantities with extremely fast shipping; see

Sources, here.

When SP-L Doesn’t Work: Occasionally you will run into a fruit withpulp that is resistant to SP-L; some jungle fruits from Colombia with localnames I can’t recall come to mind. Other fruits, like tamarind, can becomeSP-L-resistant if the seeds are pureed with the pulp. In these cases ahydrocolloid thickener (complex long-chain polysaccharide) other thanpectin is present in the product and the SP-L can’t dissolve it. In these cases,you are SOL.

SP-L won’t break down starch. Starchy products such as sweetpotatoes and underripe bananas will always give a cloudy result with the~4000-g centrifuges I use.

Most important, SP-L doesn’t work perfectly in very-low-pH productssuch as lime juice (which has a pH of 2 and change). Grapefruit juice’sacidity, at roughly pH 3, is right on the edge of what SP-L can handle withaplomb on its own. With these acidic products, SP-L is still useful, but itcan’t work alone: you’ll need further interventions. I use wine fining agents,which gave me the final key to clarified lime juice.

SP-L AND TEMPERATUREI usually warm ingredients I’m treating with SP-L, because SP-L works much more rapidly if it is warm—unless it gets too warm and gets denatured. I use body temperature as a reference, because bodytemperature is mostly constant, easy to judge, and warm enough to be effective but cool enough not to changemy ingredients’ flavors or destroy the enzyme. At body temperature, SP-L works in a few minutes. Atrefrigerator temperature, I have to let the enzyme work for an hour or more. If you are starting with juice orpremade puree, add the enzyme directly to the juice or puree and mix thoroughly. If you are blending productsto make a puree, add the SP-L directly to the blender with your fruit or veggies; it will help liquefy the pureeas you blend. I use a Vita-Prep blender, which is so powerful that the friction of the blades spinning on highslowly heats my purees to just above body temp, and that is what I recommend you do if you have one.Heating with a blender never scorches anything, which is why I like to do it that way. If you don’t have aVita-Prep, soak uncut fruits in warm water for a couple of minutes to heat them to just above body temp, orelse let the puree rest an hour or more for the enzyme to work before proceeding with clarification.

FININGIn winemaking, fining is the process of adding small amounts of specializedingredients to the wine to get all the cloudy impurities to clump together—flocculation—and aggregate in large enough masses for gravity to pull them to the bottom of thevat relatively quickly. Most fining agents rely on electrical charge to do their work.You see, most of the particles that are floating in wine, or your juice, have some sortof charge on them. By adding a fining agent with the opposite charge, you can get thoseimpurities to clump together, making it easier to get them to settle to the bottom. If the

cloudy particles still aren’t big enough to settle, you can use a counterfining agent. Acounterfine has the opposite charge to the fining agent. It will mop up anything in thejuice that the first fining agent couldn’t catch, plus get the already-clumped-up stuff toclump up into even bigger particles.

Normally, in wine, you do two steps: fine, then counterfine. That doesn’t workfor lime juice. I figured out that to get lime juice to work, you need three steps: fine(and add SP-L), counterfine, and fine again.

The fining agents I use are kieselsol and chitosan. You can get them at any home-brew shop. Kieselsol is food-grade suspended silica; it has a negative charge.Chitosan is a positively charged hydrocolloid that comes from shrimp shells. Thesolution they sell at the home-brew shops is 1 percent chitosan in a weakly acidicaqueous solution. Chitosan comes from chitin, the second most common polymer onearth after cellulose. Every bug and crustacean on the planet is protected by achitinous shell, and mushrooms and other fungi build their cell walls with chitin. Theshrimp origin of chitosan is the only fly in the buttermilk of my clarification bliss. Itdoesn’t end up in the product (it is spun out) and it is non-allergenic (I’ve testedchitosaned lime juice on folks with shellfish allergies), but I’m still using an animalproduct, and I would rather not. Luckily, non-animal-based chitosan is now beingmade and should be available soon.

Both kieselsol and chitosan are used in small quantities: 2 grams per liter. UnlikeSP-L, the amount of fining agents you use is critical. Too much is as bad as too little. Ifyou add too much, you can actually stabilize the particles you are trying to floctogether.

The powerhouse wine-fining agents I use, kieselsol—suspended silica sol—and chitosan—a polysaccharide

derived, in this case, from shrimp shells and prepared in an acidic aqueous solution.

What fining agents do to for you: At left is untreated, cloudy lime juice. The second tube has lime juice that Itreated with SP-L and negatively charged kieselsol. A lot of the solids have settled, but the juice is stillcloudy. Fifteen minutes later, I added positively charged chitosan to tube three. The chitosan agglomeratedthe negatively charged kieselsol, and the lime juice settles much more than in tube three, but is still cloudy.Fifteen minutes later I added more kieselsol to tube four. Notice this juice is crystal clear, but now thecloudiness isn’t settling as much. This is a common problem, because the last particles that kept tube threecloudy don’t settle as much as heavier, earlier floccing particles do. A centrifuge smashes all the solids fromtube four into a tiny pellet and increases our yield to nearly 100 percent. Look at how little the pellet is. Itdoesn’t take much to make a liquid cloudy.

OTHER COCKTAIL USES FOR SP-LSP-L dissolves the white pithy part—the albedo—of citrus peels. If you make perfect citrus peels by cuttingwedges into the fruit with a knife and removing perfect triangles, you can vacuum the peels in a bag with asolution of 4 grams SP-L per liter of water and let it soak for several hours. When you remove the peels fromthe bag, the albedo will have turned to mush. Brush it away under water with a toothbrush.

Some nice garnishes can be made this way. SP-L doesn’t really work on lime peels (of course). Kumquatscut in an X shape can be soaked in SP-L to make kumquat flowers. Last, SP-L can be used to auto-suprêmecitrus segments. A citrus suprême is a wedge of fruit without all the connective tissue that surrounds it. Old-school kitchen technique is to make suprêmes with a knife—a good technique, but flawed in that it is wastefulof fruit and requires you to cut into the individual sacs of pulp so they leak. A better way is to peel your fruit,separate it into four parts, and soak it in a solution of 4 grams per liter SP-L and water for a couple hours.Whatever connective tissue isn’t melted outright can be rubbed off or peeled away with ease. Thesesuprêmes look beautiful. A great trick is to freeze them with liquid nitrogen and shatter them. They willshatter into their individual juice sacs without leaking. You can then do things like float blood-orange bits ontop of your drink without spoiling the overall appearance of the cocktail.

CLARIFICATION TECHNIQUES AND FLAVOR

Clarification changes the flavor of ingredients. That’s right—clarification changes theway things taste. Usually the particles floating around in your drink making it cloudyare also contributing some kind of flavor. The flavor of the particles is often notidentical to that of the liquid they are floating in, so when you strip the particles out,you alter the flavor of the remaining liquid.

Whether the flavor change is good or bad is context-dependent. Clarifyinggrapefruit removes some of its bitterness, making it friendlier for many cocktails andworse for others. Sometimes the SunnyD flavor that you get when you clarify OJ helpsa drink out, and other times it’s gross.

How much you change the flavor of your ingredients depends on the ingredientsyou have and the techniques you use. In general, gel clarifications strip more flavorthan mechanical (centrifugal) clarifications do. Treating a juice with SP-L has verylittle effect on flavor—it merely obliterates tasteless pectin—but SP-L can indirectlyalter the flavor of your juice by increasing your yield. For example, one of thecharacteristic notes of red plum juice is astringency from the skins. Astringency isleached into the juice from the skins as it sits waiting to be clarified. As the yield ofclarified juice increases, extra nonastringent juice is released from the interior pulpypart of the plums, reducing the overall astringency. Life is never simple.

Wine fining agents can have major taste impacts, but I chose kieselsol andchitosan because they don’t strip flavor heavily in the dosages I use. Some other finingagents are known flavor thieves.

Clarification Techniques: Nitty-Gritty FlowchartsHere is where you want to start reading again if you skipped the theory. I’m going toassume you fall into one of two camps, those with a centrifuge and those without.Choose your camp and I’ll tell you how to proceed from there.

I DON’T HAVE A CENTRIFUGE: STEP 1Look at what you want to clarify. Is it pretty thin? Is it less acidic than grapefruitjuice? Does it start to settle a bit on its own? Will it last a day in the refrigeratorwithout losing quality? Unpasteurized apple juice, pear juice, carrot juice, and evenorange juice are like this. You can often clarify such juices just by adding SP-L andletting the solids settle. Settle ʼn’ rack doesn’t provide good yield but couldn’t besimpler. Expect to lose between one-third and one-quarter of your product (well, youdon’t lose it, but it won’t be clarified).

1A: MY PRODUCT IS THIN, SEPARATES EASILY, AND IS LESSACIDIC THAN GRAPEFRUIT. I’M GOING TO RACK.

Add 2 grams Pectinex Ultra SP-L to every liter of juice. Stir thoroughly. Putthe juice in a clear round container. Your container should be clear so youcan see what is happening. Your container should be round because whensquare containers are moved around, they kick up particles. Put the juice inthe fridge overnight and let it settle. Carefully pour the clear juice off thetop. You’re done.

Here I use a separatory funnel (sep funnel) to separate the solids from liquids in orange juice. A sep funnellets you “reverse rack.” Normally when racking you remove the clear liquid off the top of the solids. With asep funnel, you drain the bottom off.

A mixture of strawberry puree and apple juice that I have treated with SP-L and am trying to clarify byracking alone. Right after treatment the juice looks like (1). Even after a couple hours of sitting, the juicelooks like (2) which has two problems: the juice is still cloudy, and the airy foam caused by juicing andblending hasn’t settled. The solution? Stir in a bit of kieselsol (the wine fining agent). The stirring will helpbreak up the bubbles and get the solids to settle and the kieselsol will mop up the last cloudy particles (3).

Notice that clarity has its price: the yield in the last glass is low.

1B: MY PRODUCT IS THICK, OR DOESN’T SETTLE, OR IS MOREACIDIC THAN GRAPEFRUIT. I’M USING AGAR.You are going to use agar to clarify. Buy powdered agar, because it is theeasiest to use. Always buy the same brand. Different brands of agar willhave slightly different properties. Get used to one brand and stick with it. Iuse Telephone Brand from Thailand.

Unless you are clarifying lime or lemon juice, you have the choice offreeze-thaw or quick clarification. Lime and lemon should only be quickclarified. The beginning steps are the same either way. Go to Step 2.

Telephone brand agar-agar. The hydrocolloid so nice they named it twice.

STEP 2: PRETREAT WITH SP-L?Any thin juice that is made with a juicer does not need to be pretreated withSP-L: cucumber, citrus, and the like. If your product is like that, go to Step3. Any thick juices or purees you want to clarify need to be treated with SP-L or your yield will be awful: blended tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries,or similar. To pretreat, add 2 grams of Pectinex Ultra SP-L to every liter (orkilo) of product. If you are blending, add the SP-L directly to the blender. Ifyour product is cold, give the SP-L an hour or so to do its work. If yourproduct is near body temperature, the SP-L will work in just a couple ofminutes. Go to Step 3.

STEP 3: DIVIDE YOUR BATCHFigure out the volume or weight of product you want to clarify. Weight or volumedoesn’t really matter here—they usually work out close enough. Do what isconvenient. First, allow your product to come up to room temperature. If your productis too cold, you will have problems in Step 6. Then make the following choice:

3A: MY PRODUCT IS NOT SUPER-HEAT-SENSITIVE, AND ISTHINOrange, grapefruit, ginger, and similar juices are like this. You are going toseparate out one-quarter of your total batch and heat only that quarter withthe agar. Afterwards you will recombine the agar with the rest of the batch.This is okay because you aren’t heating that much of it, and it is relativelyeasy to hydrate agar in thin liquids. For example, if you start with 1 liter ofgrapefruit juice, divide it into a 750-milliliter sample and a 250-milliliterssample. You will add the agar to the 250. Go to Step 4.

3B: MY PRODUCT IS HEAT-SENSITIVE, OR ALCOHOLIC, ORTHICKLime juice, strawberry puree, and gin blended with raspberries fall in thiscategory. In these cases, you don’t want to heat the products directly. Insteadyou will heat the agar in water and then combine the agar-water with yourproduct. For every 750 milliliters or 750 grams of product, measure out andreserve 250 milliliters of water. In Step 5 you will add the agar to the 250milliliters of water. Does this extra water dilute the juice a little? Yes, butin my experience, not as much as you’d expect. Strangely, for products likelime juice, the difference is often negligible. Go to Step 4.

If the ingredient you are clarifying is alcoholic or heat sensitive you should hydrate the agar in pure water.Here we have 750 ml of lime juice 250 ml of water and two grams agar.

STEP 4: MEASURE YOUR AGARNow that you have measured and divided your batch, you are going to weighout 2 grams of agar for every liter of total stuff you are going to clarify. So ifyou are doing an all-juice clarification, like grapefruit juice, you willmeasure 2 grams of agar per liter of juice. If you are doing a juice-waterclarification, like lime juice, you will measure 2 grams of agar for every750 milliliters of juice and 250 milliliters of water. Got it? Go to Step 5.

STEP 5: HYDRATE THE AGARDo not add agar to hot liquid. It will clump. Add agar to liquids at bodytemperature or below. Add the agar to the small batch of liquid or water youhave reserved from Step 3 and then stir vigorously with a whisk to dispersethe powder. When the powder is dispersed, turn on the heat. Agar needs tobe heated to the boil and held there for a couple minutes to hydrate properly.(For those of you at high altitudes, I have successfully hydrated agar inBogotá, Colombia, elevation 8612 feet/2625 meters, local boiling point196°F/91°C—but it was a pain). Continue to stir while your product comesup to the boil, then turn the heat down and cover the pot; you don’t want toboil off too much liquid. Go to Step 6.

STEP 6: TEMPER THE BATCHAdd the unheated liquid to the hot agar solution, not the other way around. Ifyou add the hot stuff to the cold, the temperature will drop quickly and theagar will gel before you want it to, spoiling your clarification. Unlikegelatin, agar sets into a gel extremely quickly once it cools below itsgelation temperature, around 35°C (95°F), or just below body temperature.Use a whisk to keep the agar fluid moving as you add the rest of the batch.When you are done, the entire batch should be just above body temperature.Now you can see why I had you let your product come to room temperaturein Step 3! Go to Step 7.

STEP 7: SET THE AGARPour your batch into a bowl, pan, or tray to set. In professional settings I use2-inch-deep hotel pans; my Euro friends will know them as gastro-norms.Use whatever you like. Your product will eventually gel at roomtemperature, but I accelerate the process by putting my setting container inthe fridge or in an ice-water bath. Do not mess with the agar while it issetting. I repeat: do not mess with the agar while it is setting. Many people Ihave trained have an irresistible pathological desire to stir a gel while it is

setting. Wrong! When you think your agar has set, lightly touch the top. Itshould feel like a very, very loose gel. Tilt your container slightly—slightly!The gel should not run. You are ready to make your big decision: freeze-thaw or quick? Go to Step 8.

STEPS 5, 6, AND 7 OF AGAR CLARIFICATION: 1) Remember to whisk agar into your liquid before youapply heat to so that the agar disperses properly, then heat and simmer for several minutes while stirring. 2)Always add juice to the hot agar solution while whisking vigorously, not the other way around. 3) Pour thetempered agar and juice into a suitable container (preferably over ice) and allow it to set undisturbed. Imean it. Leave it alone. Let it set.

STEP 8: FREEZE-THAW OR QUICK CLARIFICATION?If you need your stuff right away, go quick. If you have time and freezerspace, freeze-thaw will provide a slightly better yield with fewerheadaches. Also, quick-clarified products tend to develop agar wisps whenstored longer than a day or so. You can stir them back in, but they areirritating.

8A: Freeze-ThawPut your container of set agar gel in your freezer and let it freeze solid. Aslong as the gel is 2 inches thick or less, it should freeze solid overnight.Once it is frozen, crack it out of its container. Don’t use hot water or a torch.Don’t shatter it into a billion pieces. There is an art to unmolding frozen gelsthat involves getting very angry with the containers holding them. I grab theedges on opposite sides and pull like a demon, working my way around thecontainer. I then flip it over and punish the bottom of the vessel till the gelreleases.

FREEZE-THAW TIPS: 1) Make sure your juice is thoroughly frozen—don’t rush it. 2) To get the frozenjuice out of the pan, pull on it hard, like you are drawing a strong bow, then rotate 90 degrees and repeat.3) Put a cloth on your work surface, flip the pan and push with force. 4) Put the frozen juice in a clothsuitable for draining and place on a rack or in a perforated pan over another pan to catch the drippings.Allow it to thaw a while on the counter and finish thawing in the fridge. 5) The spent raft.

Once the gel is released, put it into some form of draining cloth. Normallypeople specify cheesecloth for this, but the average cheesecloth is absurdand close to gauze. Worthless! You are better off using an unbleached cottontablecloth. Put the gel in the cloth into a colander set over a collectioncontainer and let it thaw. You can leave it out a couple of hours to kick-startthe thawing. Once the gel starts dripping a lot, transfer it to the fridge tocontinue thawing. Every once and while, drain off and save what you have.When it looks like the agar is spent and what is dripping out is devoid offlavor and color, you are done. Combine all the drippings together andenjoy. You’re done.

8B: QUICK

Get a whisk and gently break up your gel. It should resemble broken curds.Pour the curds into an unbleached cloth napkin or filter sack and let the clearjuices flow into a container. Resist the urge to squeeze on the gel too hard. Ifyou squeeze hard, you will push cloudy agar bits through your filter and intoyour juice. Bad. You will find that the filter clogs rather quickly. Gentlypinch a portion of it in your fingers and rub the cloth against itself to free upthe pores. I call this massaging the sack. Massaging the sack and applyingjust the right amount of pressure are the finesse skills you must develop todo this technique properly. It takes some practice. An alternate technique Ishow people is to tie your filter sack shut and throw it into a salad spinner.The spinner does a good job of gently extracting the liquid, and you can’tspin too hard with a salad spinner. You still need to massage the sackbetween spins! You’re done.

QUICK AGAR: 1) Once the agar has set, gently break the gel with a whisk so it looks like curds. 2) Pourthe curds into a draining cloth and let it drip. 3) As the cloth clogs, gently “massage the sack”. If yousqueeze hard you will push agar through the cloth and ruin your product. 4) Quick agar is not quite asclear as freeze-thaw. This juice could be passed through a coffee filter to catch the errant bits of agar in it.

AN ALTERNATIVE TO MASSAGING THE SACK: tying the top of the sack closed and putting it in a saladspinner—the poor cook’s centrifuge. In between spins you still need to do some massaging to unclog thecloth, but this method is almost foolproof.

I HAVE A CENTRIFUGE: STEP 1: ADD SP-LAdd 2 grams of Pectinex Ultra SP-L to every liter or kilo of product youwant to clarify. If you are blending fruits like strawberries, blueberries,peaches, plums, apricots—whatever—add the SP-L directly to the blenderand blend till the product is just above body temperature. Remember, thisprocess won’t clarify starchy things completely. Go to Step 2.

STEP 2: ASSESS ACIDITY

2A: MY PRODUCT IS LESS ACIDIC THAN GRAPEFRUIT JUICEIf your product is body temp when you add the SP-L, you are ready to spin.If your product is refrigerator temperature, give the SP-L an hour to work.Go to Step 3.

2B: MY PRODUCT IS SIMILAR TO OR MORE ACIDIC THANGRAPEFRUIT JUICE2B1 When you add the SP-L to the juice (Step 1), also add 2 grams per literof kieselsol (suspended silica) and stir. This measurement needs to be fairlyaccurate. I use a micropipette to measure it, because micropipettes are fast

and I do this a lot.2B2 Wait 15 minutes.2B3 Add 2 grams per liter of chitosan (1% chitosan solution) and stir well.Again, this measurement must also be accurate.2B4 Wait 15 minutes.2B5 Add 2 more grams per liter of kieselsol (measure accurately) and stir.Go to Step 3.

STEP 3: PREP AND SPINAir bubbles won’t necessarily pop in the centrifuge when you spin. If thebubbles don’t pop, you will get floaty doodles on top of your product whenyou spin. I hate floaty doodles. Bananas don’t make them, but tomatoes do; itis hard to predict. If you have a chamber vacuum machine, you can use it tode-aerate your product before you spin, which will obliterate floaties, butthis step is optional. When you load your centrifuge, make sure to balance itproperly, and then spin for 10 to 15 minutes at 4000 times the force ofgravity. If you don’t have a refrigerated centrifuge, make sure your bucketsare extremely cold before you spin so your product doesn’t heat up. Go toStep 4.

STEP 4: POUR OFF THE PRODUCTWhen you pour your product out of the centrifuge tubes or buckets, it is good practiceto pour through a coffee filter or fine strainer to catch anything that might be floating ontop or in case the puck breaks free and falls toward your clarified product. You aredone.

REALLY ADVANCED CENTRIFUGED GRAPEFRUITCentrifuge-clarified grapefruit juice tastes more bitter than agar-clarified grapefruit juice does. The agar geltraps and holds on to a portion of the bitter molecule in grapefruit, naringin. In my carbonated cocktail Gin andJuice (here), I think the less bitter juice is better, but centrifuging is a far more convenient technique for me touse at the bar: better yield and much faster. In a technique similar to washing, you can use agar to strip someof the naringin from grapefruit juice that is clarified in a centrifuge.

You do this by making an agar fluid gel. A fluid gel is something that acts like a gel when it is standing still butacts like a liquid when you stir it or agitate it. Chefs use fluid gels to make sauces that plate like purees butfeel very liquid in the mouth. Thinner fluid gels are used to suspend objects in drinks or soups. You aren’tusing any of those properties here. An agar fluid gel is a bunch of tiny gel particles suspended in a liquid. Allthose tiny particles have a huge surface area that will help soak up naringin and are easy to spin out ofsuspension with a centrifuge.

To make the fluid gel you first make a regular grapefruit gel with 1 percent agar—10 grams of agar per kiloof juice—and set it solid. This is a much firmer gel than you use in gel clarification. Put the gel in a blender

and blend until totally smooth. With this step you have created a fluid gel.

Add 100 grams of the grapefruit fluid gel to every 900 grams of regular grapefruit juice right when you addthe SP-L and kieselsol as part of your normal centrifuge routine. Proceed as usual with the rest ofclarification and you will have a less bitter grapefruit juice.

On the upper left is grapefruit juice gelled solid with 10 grams of agar per liter of juice. On the lowerright is that same gel blended into a fluid gel. Fluid gels are fantastic in culinary applications becausethey plate like a puree but eat like a sauce. Here we use it to strip naringin from grapefruit juice incentrifugal clarification.

Clarifying Booze in the ’Fuge: The JustinoBad news: you need a centrifuge to try the following technique. Good news: once youhave a centrifuge, this technique will change your drink-making life.

Turns out you can make a beautifully clear spirit from a straight liquor and thefruit or vegetable or spice of your choice. You blend the liquor and the otheringredients, add the enzyme Pectinex Ulta SP-L, and use a centrifuge to spin this mixinto a clear spirit that I call a Justino (pronounced whoo-stee-no). (If the process inthat last sentence holds no meaning for you, read the earlier part of this clarificationsection). Justinos rely on the fact that Pectinex Ultra SP-L, an enzyme that destroys thestructure of blended fruit and allows effective clarification, works quite well in highlyalcoholic solutions. Many enzymes don’t.

The birth of Justino went something like this: I was interested in making a bananacocktail that wasn’t thick and gloopy like a smoothie. While there are plenty ofbanana-flavored liquors, I wanted to use just the straight juice, and I wasn’t havingmuch success making it. My yields were poor, and the taste was off. I knew I needed

to add more liquid to the banana to up the yield, but I didn’t want to add a non-alcoholic liquid, so I just blended the bananas with the booze and centrifuged it clear.The result was rum with pure banana flavor. Beautiful! When a reporter asked mewhat the liquor was called, I came up with Justino—and the name stuck.

Although you can blend almost anything into booze to make a Justino, I like to uselow-water products so the alcohol content stays high. I find that higher-proof Justinosmix better and last a lot longer than lower-proof ones. Lower-proof Justinos tend to beless versatile and have unstable flavors. If you want to Justino with high-waterproducts like honeydew melon, you should put those products in the dehydrator beforeyou blend them with the liquor. Commercially produced dried fruits are great choicesfor Justinos.

Starchy products don’t work well. The SP-L enzyme doesn’t break starches downand the liquor will not clarify in the low-speed centrifuges that are commonly used inrestaurants and bars. For instance, you can’t make a good Justino with unripe bananas—they have too much starch.

THE JUSTINO PROCESS: 1) Add fruit to liquor, 2) then Pectinex Ultra SP-L, 3) then blend at high speeduntil the friction of the blender heats the mix up to body temperature. I use the back of my hand on thepitcher to judge the temperature. 4) Pour the mix into centrifuge buckets, making sure to balance thebuckets, and 5) place them in the centrifuge and spin for 10–15 minutes at 4000 times the force of gravity.6) Pour off the clear Justino.

The basic starting recipe for Justino is 250 grams of fruit or vegetable for everyliter of liquor, a ratio of 1:4. This is a good starting point. If you are using aningredient that has very low water content and the mix seems to be more of a pastethan a puree, lower the ratio to 200 grams of fruit or vegetable per liter of liquor—1:5. Sometimes you might even do 1:6. If your Justino is too thick before you spin it,your yield will be low. Sometimes if your yield is too low and your Justino ratio can’tbe reduced further without damaging flavor, you can fix the problem after you spin byadding some water to the puck and spinning again (see the Apricots Justino recipehere for the technique).

After you spin the product, taste the Justino. If it is too weak and your yield ishigh, increase the ratio of solids to liquor. If the ratio is already high and the Justinotastes watery, dehydrate your solids more before making the Justino. If the Justino istoo strong in flavor (usually too sweet), start adding straight liquor till you like it.Once you find a ratio you like, you can try using that ratio from the beginning the nexttime you make it, or you can just keep making the Justino the same way and add freshliquor at the end. Strangely, the two techniques produce different-tasting liquors.Sometimes one is better than the other. You will just have to test, taste, and see foryourself. Here is an example.

Let’s say you are making a Justino of Medjool dates in bourbon and you test myrecommended ratio of 1:4 dates to liquor. You will find that the yield is okay but theJustino is too sweet. Most likely, you’ll like it best when you add 250 milliliters offresh bourbon to every 750 milliliters Justino, an equivalent Justino ratio of 1:5.3.Strangely, you will also find that if you make the same Justino with an initial ratio of1:5.3, it doesn’t taste as good as the 1:4 Justino with the fresh liquor mixed in. I don’tknow why.

BANANAS JUSTINO

SOME OF MY FAVORITE JUSTINOS

BANANAS JUSTINO: 3 peeled ripe bananas (250 grams) per 750 mlof liquor. Works well with aged rums (not rums that have caramelcolor added; the Justino process strips it out), bourbons, evenHendrick’s gin. Remember that the bananas must be ripe: brown but notblack. If they are not ripe, the starch in them will create a cloudy drinkwith a starchy taste. This liquor is fantastic poured over a rock andserved with a wedge of lime and a pinch of salt. For a real treat, keepthe lime but pour the Justino over a large ice cube made from high-quality coconut water, and float a star anise pod on top.

DATES JUSTINO: 187 grams Medjool dates per 750 ml liquor.Justino, then add 250 ml of fresh liquor. Works well with bourbon,Scotch, and Japanese whiskey. Serve over a rock with a dash ofbitters.

RED CABBAGE JUSTINO: Dehydrate 400 grams of red cabbage to100 grams and Justino with 500 ml Plymouth gin. If you skip thedehydrating step, your drink will smell like an ill wind from thenethers. Works well in shaken drinks.

To make Justinos out of cabbage, 1) dehydrate the cabbage until 2) it has lost ¾ of its initial weight. 3) Red-cabbage Justino.

APRICOTS JUSTINO: Use dehydrated apricots for this. I preferBlenheim apricots from California as the base of this Justino. In myopinion, they are the royalty of dried apricots. Blenheims are full offlavor and have a lot of bright acidity. If you use any other apricot, theresults will be totally different. Make sure not to get apricots that are

untreated for oxidation. The most common treatment is sulfuring, butthere are others. It is easy to tell if an apricot has not been treated—itwill be brown and taste oxidized.

Blenheim Justinos are one of the few that I actually think are lowin sugar. You can either add a bit of sugar to the finished product orsubstitute garden-variety dried apricots (which have less acidity) for aportion of the Blenheims. Apricots absorb a lot of liquor during theJustino process, so yield is low.

Here is how to proceed: Make a Justino with 200 grams ofdehydrated Blenheim apricots and 1 liter of liquor. When you drain theJustino, save the pucks of apricot solids from the centrifuge buckets,place them in a blender with 250 ml filtered water and an additional 1to 2 grams SP-L, and blend. I call this a remouillage (rewetting), orremmi, after the French technique of adding a second batch of water toextract used stock ingredients a second time. Spin the remouillage inthe centrifuge and add the resulting clear liquid to the original Justino.This process pulls out a good bit of the trapped alcohol and flavorfrom the pucks, so add it to the first-spin Justino.

This recipe works well with genever, gin, rye, vodka. . .I’m hard-pressed to think of something it wouldn’t work with.

PINEAPPLES JUSTINO: Use 200 grams of dried pineapple per literof liquor. As with Apricots Justino, do not use the “natural”-type driedpineapples, which are brown and sad-looking/tasting. This recipeworks well with dark or white rum—but you already knew that. Try itwith whiskey or brandy for more of a pineapple-upside-down-cakefeeling.

WashingIn 2012, ESPN asked me to make an alcoholic version of the Arnold Palmer, a mixtureof iced tea and lemonade named for the famous golfer. I replied that the Arnold Palmeris clearly best as a nonalcoholic drink; diluting and chilling an alcoholic tea cocktailmakes the tea’s astringency too dominant. Think of how a big, tannic red wine tasteswhen it is too cold, then multiply that effect in your mind, and you get the idea. I madethe film crew several alcoholic Arnold Palmer variants. We all agreed they weren’tvery good.

After the crew left, I got to thinking. Many people, especially in the U.K., taketheir tea with milk. Milk proteins—casein in particular—bind with the tannic,astringent compounds in tea and mellow the brew. I decided to make some tea-infusedvodka, add milk, and then curdle the milk-vodka to clarify the liquor and remove theastringency. I steeped tea in vodka till I had a very strong decoction, then added thatvodka to milk and stirred in a little bit of citric acid solution. It worked beautifully.The milk broke and the solids settled to the bottom. I spun my vodka in a centrifuge(because I have one, but you can just strain the liquid through a fine cloth). I reducedthe astringency of the tea so much that the cocktail tasted balanced even when cold,though the tea flavor was still very strong. When I added simple syrup and lemon juiceto the tea vodka and shook it with ice, I reaped an unintended side benefit: boozewashed with milk this way gets a silky texture and makes an incredibly rich head whenshaken. Although the casein in the milk curdles and is removed in the washing process,the whey proteins remain—and they are fantastic whipping agents.

Milk washing, therefore, has two purposes: it reduces astringency and harshness,and it augments the texture of shaken drinks.

The concept of washing liquids takes a little getting used to. You wash clothes toremove dirt; you wash ingredients to remove flavors. You can use washing in yourcocktail ventures in two different ways. You can booze-wash, as I did in the ArnoldPalmer, by adding a “detergent”—usually milk, gelatin, hydrocolloids, or eggs—tobind with unwanted compounds in the liquor so that you can remove them. You canalso fat-wash to wring good flavors out of a fat and into a liquor, and then use thatliquor to make something delicious. In the first example you’re washing a liquor; in thesecond you’re washing a fat.

Good news: all the techniques in this section can be pulled off without fancyequipment, although having a centrifuge is nice for some. Let’s tackle booze washingfirst.

POLYPHENOL ASTRINGENCY AND PROLINE-RICHPROTEINSThe astringency of a polyphenol correlates well with how strongly it binds to a specific group of salivaryproteins called proline-rich proteins (PRPs). These proteins contain large amounts of the amino acid proline.The prolines give the proteins more affinity for polyphenols. If you remember, plants produce astringentpolyphenols to make themselves less digestible and therefore less likely to be eaten. PRPs in saliva bind withthe polyphenols and mitigate their antidigestive properties—an herbivore’s countermeasure to the plants’defense mechanism. Tellingly, carnivore spit doesn’t have PRPs. Tigers eat only meat, not leaves and bark,so they don’t need the PRPs. Herbivores have lots of PRPs in their spit. We, as omnivores, are in between.

Many other proline-rich proteins besides saliva PRPs also bind to polyphenols, including milk protein (casein),egg whites, and gelatin. These are the proteins that we use in booze washing.

Booze WashingTo remove flaws from poorly distilled spirits you typically use hard-core flavor- andcolor-stripping media such as activated charcoal. We are not talking about that kind ofremoval here. We are talking about selectively stripping flavors from perfectly goodbooze. Why would we do this? Because certain flavors, while nice on their own, canoverwhelm the other ingredients in a cocktail. Bourbon, for example, is delicious.Bourbon cocktails are delicious. Carbonated bourbon cocktails? Often not delicious.The pleasing woodiness in bourbon becomes harsh and overpowering whencarbonated. You could just add less bourbon, or perhaps cut the bourbon with aneutral spirit like vodka, but isn’t it better just to moderate that harshness and leave therest of the bourbon flavors intact? Another example: Black tea tastes good. Black teavodka tastes good. Cocktails made with black tea vodka are usually not good—theyare harsh, astringent, and difficult to balance properly. You could just dial back the teain the cocktail till the astringency didn’t bother you anymore . . . or you couldmoderate the harshness by washing the booze, leaving the rest of the tea flavor intact.Choose washing!

BOOZE-WASHING SCIENCEThe flavors we target with booze washing are called polyphenols, a group ofchemicals produced by plants, often as a defense against predators or damage.Polyphenols are decent defense mechanisms because they typically have bactericidal,insecticidal, and antidigestive properties that animals leave alone. Many polyphenolsare astringent. Tannins, for instance, are polyphenols, and their presence in grapeseeds and skins is responsible for the tannic flavors of red wine. Ditto the tannicflavors in cranberry, cassis, and certain apple varieties. Polyphenols in oak woodgive whiskey and brandy their trademark woodiness. You might remember from thenitro-muddling section of this book that a damaged herb leaf causes enzymes calledpolyphenol oxidases to link small phenolic molecules together into large, dark-

colored polyphenols. In tea, those polyphenols are desirable: they create thecharacteristic astringency of dark tea.

To attack polyphenols, I steal from the winemaker’s playbook. The winemakercombats the problems of excess astringency, protein haze, off flavors, and turbiditythrough a process called fining: adding small quantities of ingredients to wine tocorrect for perceived problems. I use these same ingredients for booze washing. Theyall rely on some combination of three basic principles: protein binding, charge, andadsorption.

PROTEIN BINDINGProtein-rich agents—egg white, blood (yep), gelatin, casein (milk protein), andisinglass (fish gelatin)—bind to impurities in a complex way. Proteins are very goodat stripping tannins and other polyphenols. They also strip color and some flavors,which can be good and bad.

CHARGESome agents rely solely on electric charge to do their work. Kieselsol (suspendedsilica) and chitosan (a polysaccharide found in all arthropod skeletons and in somefungi) are two such agents. Kieselsol has a negative charge and will therefore attractpositively charged impurities, while chitosan is positive and will attract negativelycharged impurities (for more on these two agents, refer to the Clarification section,here) The polyphenols that we seek to reduce when we booze-wash are negativelycharged, so chitosan, with its positive charge, is our best electrostatic weapon.

ADSORPTIONOther agents rely on adsorption, the process of a liquid or gas sticking to a surface.Adsorptive agents, such as activated charcoal, have an immense surface area of tinypores that trap impurities. Adsorptive agents tend to be rather broad-spectrum flavormuters—too blunt an instrument. I don’t use them much.

Every fining/booze-washing agent removes different flavors in different amounts,and some bring textures and flavors of their own. While wine fining is still a bit of adark art, there’s plentiful information to guide the booze washer; I have called outsome sources in the bibliography. My booze washing differs from wine fining in somekey ways. I focus on quick results, while wine fining is typically a slow process. I uselarge amounts of fining agents to strip flavors, while wine producers are usuallylooking for more subtle effects. Let’s look at how I developed three different booze-washing techniques—milk washing, egg washing, and chitosan/gellan washing—andhow they can help you.

Milk Washing: What’s Old Is What’s New

I must point out that adding milk to alcohol and then clarifying, as I did with theArnold Palmer, is nothing new. Milk punch has been around since the seventeenthcentury. The difference between milk punch and my milk washing: milk washing ispracticed on straight booze, not a cocktail, and it anticipates shaking to producefantastic foam. Milk punches were not typically shaken. Over time, the whey in milk-washed booze degrades and loses its foaming power. It doesn’t go bad, it just loses itsawesomeness. Use milk-washed boozes within a week or so.

My tea drink from the beginning of the section came out so nicely that I put it onthe menu at the bar. Here it is, on the following page.

MILK PUNCHA traditional milk punch contains booze, milk, and other flavors. The milk is induced to curdle and the curdsare strained out; after the straining you are left with a clear, stable beverage. Here is Benjamin Franklin’srecipe from a letter he wrote in 1763:

Take 6 quarts of Brandy, and the Rinds of 44 Lemons pared very thin; Steep the Rinds in the Brandy24 hours; then strain it off. Put to it 4 Quarts of Water, 4 large Nutmegs grated, 2 quarts of LemonJuice, 2 pound of double refined Sugar. When the Sugar is dissolv’d, boil 3 Quarts of Milk and put tothe rest hot as you take it off the Fire, and stir it about. Let it stand two Hours; then run it thro’ a Jelly-bag till it is clear; then bottle it off.*

Why make milk punch? Milk punches are known for their soft, round flavors. That softness isn’t caused justby the presence of milk but by the removal of phenolic compounds from the brandy via the casein-rich curds.Old Ben Franklin might have been dealing with some pretty rough brandy back in 1763, and the milk wouldhave stripped away a lot of its harshness. Ben didn’t mention the awesome foaming properties, because atthat time no one was shaking cocktails with ice. Pity!

*Courtesy Bowdin and Temple Papers, in the Winthrop Family Papers,Massachusetts Historical Society

Tea Time (an alcoholic Arnold Palmer variant)I use a Selimbong second-flush Darjeeling tea for this drink. Darjeeling is a famoustea-growing district in the mountainous northeast of India. In March the teas ofDarjeeling grow their first crop of leaves—the first-flush Darjeelings. The first-flushteas are the most expensive, but they aren’t my favorite. Several months later there’s asecond flush of new leaves. These second-flush Darjeelings are unique in the teaworld for their fruity aroma, known in the biz as muscatel. Selimbong Estate isparticularly well known for the quality of its second-flush teas. I infuse it into vodkabecause I want to highlight the tea rather than the intrinsic flavor of a spirit. Originally

I made this cocktail with lemon juice and simple syrup. Piper Kristensen, who workswith me at Booker and Dax, suggested that I use honey syrup instead, and he was right,not only because tea, lemon, and honey are a classic combination but because proteinsin honey augment the foaminess of the milk-washed tea vodka. The honey syrup recipeis easy: add 200 grams of water to every 300 grams of honey (for ounce people: 10¼ounces of water per pound of honey). Note that this recipe is by weight, not volume.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE TEA VODKA32 grams Selimbong second-flush Darjeeling tea1 liter vodka (40% alcohol by volume)250 ml whole milk15 grams 15% citric acid solution or a fat 1 ounce (33 ml) freshly strainedlemon juice

PROCEDUREAdd the tea to the vodka in a closed container and shake it up. Let the tea infuse for 20to 40 minutes, shaking occasionally. The time will change based on the size of theleaves you use and the type of tea you use if you don’t use the Selimbong; what’simportant is the color, which provides a decent indicator of brew strength in tea. Godark. When the tea is dark enough, strain it from the vodka.

Put the milk into a container and stir the tea vodka into the milk (note that if you addthe milk to the tea vodka instead, the milk will instantly curdle and reduce theeffectiveness of the wash). Let the mix rest for a couple of minutes, then stir in thecitric acid solution. If you don’t want to buy citric acid, use lemon juice, but don’t addall the lemon juice at once; do it by thirds. When the milk breaks, stop adding. Don’tstir too violently after you add the acid. Once the milk breaks, you don’t want toreemulsify or break up the curds at all, or you’ll make straining more difficult.

After the milk breaks, you will see small clouds of tan curds floating in a sea of almostclear tea-colored vodka. If you look closely, you’ll see that the vodka is still faintlycloudy. It still has some casein in it that hasn’t agglomerated onto the curds. Take aspoon and gently move the curds around to mop up the extra casein. You should seethe vodka get noticeably clearer, and the curds will get noticeably more distinct. Dothe gentle curd-mopping several times, then let the vodka sit undisturbed for severalhours to settle out before you strain the curds with a fine filter and a coffee filter (orjust spin the stuff in a centrifuge right away, as I do).

When you make your tea infusion, make it dark. Don’t worry about over-steeping, you will strip out theastringency later.

INGREDIENTS FOR TEA TIMEMAKES 1 43⁄5 OUNCE (137 ML) DRINK AT 14.9% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 6.9 G/100 ML SUGAR,0.66% ACID

2 ounces (60 ml) milk-washed tea-infused vodka1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) honey syrup1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lemon juice2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients, shake with ice, and serve in a chilled coupe glass.Garnish with pride in a job well done.

MILK WASHING: 1) Always add the liquor to the milk, not the other way around, or the milk will instantlycurdle. Some liquors—like coffee infusions—will break on their own. Others—like the tea shown here—willnot. 2) Stir the liquor to get it moving then add a bit of citric acid solution or lemon juice. In (3) the milk hasjust started to break. Gently agitate the liquor with a spoon to allow the curds to mop up any errant cloudyparticles and 4) allow the liquor to settle before coffee-filtering or centrifuging.

All milk washing follows this procedure, but some liquors will curdle the milkeven if you don’t add any acid. In coffee infusions, the combination of alcohol andcoffee is usually enough to curdle the milk on its own; ditto with cranberry-infusedliquor. Whenever you milk wash, follow the tips above, like making sure to add theliquor to the milk, not the other way around, and gently stirring the curds to mop up allthe free casein, and you’ll get good consistent results.

Most of the time when I’m milk washing, I’m focused on very astringentingredients such as tea. I have tested milk washing on less astringent polyphenol-richaged spirits such as bourbon and rye and brandy. In these spirits, the oak in concertwith the alcohol typically curdles the milk by itself. The oak in aged spirits not onlydestabilizes milk by adding polyphenols that bind to casein, it also reduces the pH toaround 4 or 4.5, making the milk break more easily. Unfortunately, the milk washingreally, really strips the oak flavor and color. Way too much, in my opinion.

You can milk-wash spirits without polyphenols, not to remove flavors but just toget the textural effects. Robby Nelson, a former bar manager at Booker and Dax, madedaiquiris with milk-washed white rum, and were they good! I use milk-washed whiterum to make an orange Julius variant called the Dr. J, which makes use of typicaldaiquiri specs (2 ounces rum, ¾ ounce lime juice, flat ¾ ounce simple syrup, pinchsalt) but replaces the lime juice with lime-strength orange juice (add 32 grams ofcitric acid and 20 grams of malic acid to a liter of orange juice; see the Ingredientssection, here, for details) and adds a drop of vanilla extract.

Egg WashingAfter I tackled the problem of creating tea cocktails with milk washing, I rememberedan unwashed tea cocktail that I really liked: the Earl Grey MarTEAni that my friendAudrey Saunders developed at Pegu Club, one of my favorite NYC bars. It’s a mixtureof Earl Grey–infused gin (Earl Grey is a blended tea flavored with bergamot citrusrind), lemon juice, simple syrup, and an egg white, with a lemon twist. I had alwaysfigured that the egg white in the MarTEAni was there for texture, but now I realizedthat the cocktail needed the egg white to bind with the tea’s polyphenols and mellowthe astringency. I asked Audrey about it and she said, “Of course—that’s why the eggwhite is there.” Duh! Then I got to thinking some more. Why is a whiskey sour shakenwith an egg white while other shaken sours with similar sugar:acid:booze ratios (likethe margarita, the daiquiri, and the fresh-lime gimlet) are not? It’s the whiskey! Theegg white in a whiskey sour is mellowing out what would otherwise be too astringenta drink at the temperatures and dilutions a whiskey sour achieves. I decided to giveegg washing a try on its own, without making a cocktail.

A whole egg white represents a substantial portion of the liquid in the undiluted

cocktail. A large egg white, roughly 30 milliliters, can represent a quarter of the totalliquid before dilution—a 3:1 ratio of cocktail mix to egg white. I figured I’d tryslightly less egg white, aiming for an egg wash at a ratio of 4 parts booze to 1 part eggwhite. I chose bourbon whiskey for my test. I mixed the egg white with a fork andstirred the whiskey into the egg, the same way that I stir booze into milk for milkwashing. The egg quickly coagulated hard and was easy to filter out, but all that eggobliterated the flavor and color of the booze, rendering it like weakly flavored vodka.In an egg-white cocktail, the egg white stays in the drink, so the flavor isn’t completelystripped. In egg washing, all that protein is removed, so the stripping effect is starker.I tried 8:1. Better, but still too stripped and a bit out of balance—the spiciness of thebourbon was gone. I then tried 20:1 and 40:1. The winner: 20:1 booze to egg white!This ratio left the character of the whiskey unharmed and allowed for a balanceddrink. The procedure was simple and foolproof.

Note that this 20:1 ratio is designed to wash pure aged booze. If you want aharsher stripping effect, as you might for coffee or tea liquor, you’ll be better off witha 8:1 ratio, or even a little higher. Those higher egg ratios will give you strippingpower similar to milk washing. But remember that milk washing adds foaming power;egg washing does not. For a stirred tea cocktail, use an egg wash. For a shaken drink,go with milk and take advantage of the awesome texture.

Egg-Washing Technique

INGREDIENTS1 extra-large egg white (after removing the yolk and losing the stuff stuck inthe shell, this is about 32 grams, a little less than the 37 needed for a true20:1)1 ounce (30 ml) filtered water750 ml liquor of your choice at 40% alcohol by volume or higher (lower-proof liquors don’t coagulate the egg as hard, and once the alcohol contentgoes below around 22% alcohol by volume the egg won’t coagulate at all)

PROCEDUREMix the egg white and water together to combine, and then add the liquor to themixture while stirring. Note that the water is just there to increase the volume of theegg mix. A single egg white would be difficult to add liquor to without insta-curdleeffects. If you are using an 8:1 or higher booze-to-egg ratio, you can omit the water.After you add the liquor, the egg white should break pretty quickly. Let the mixture sit

for a couple of minutes and gently stir it to swab any stray proteins into the coagulum.Let the mixture stand for an hour, then strain it through a coffee filter. It should beclear.

EGG WASHING, IN THIS CASE WITH BLENDED SCOTCH: (1) Add liquor to the egg-white and watermix while stirring. In (2) the egg is just beginning to coagulate. With some gentle stirring it should look like(3) and should eventually settle like (4). (5) Strain through a coffee filter. In (6) you see untreated liquor onthe left and egg-washed liquor on the right.

One of the fantastic things about egg washing is that you need no equipment, andunless you are vegan, you probably have eggs in your fridge right now. Also, becauseegg washing leaves very little residual protein in the liquor, you can use it to mellowdrinks that are too harsh to carbonate on their own, and you can carbonate themwithout too much foaming. Milk washing will never work for a carbonated drinkbecause it exacerbates the foaming issue.

Here is a recipe for an egg-washed red wine and cognac carbonated cocktail!That is a drink that needs some mellowing.

Cognac and CabernetIf you set out to mix a red wine with a spirit like Cognac, you might choose a sweetwine—one that would mask the tannins present in both. But here we will stay dry, andstrip the tannins out instead. This cocktail is deep pink, dry, raisiny, and satisfying. Itdrinks less like a cocktail and more like a wine. To do the booze washing you’ll use 1part egg to 6 parts booze—a fairly large proportion.MAKES TWO 44⁄5-OUNCE (145-ML) DRINKS AT 14.5% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 3.4 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.54% ACID

INGREDIENTS1 large egg white (1 ounce/ 30 ml)2 ounces (60 ml) Cognac (41% alcohol by volume)4 ounces (120 ml) cabernet sauvignon (14.5% alcohol by volume)2 ounces (60 ml) filtered water1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) clarified lemon juice or 6% citric acid solution1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup4 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

PROCEDUREAdd the egg white to a small mixing container and thoroughly break it up with a barspoon. Combine the cognac and the cabernet and add them, stirring, to the egg white.The mix should go cloudy. Continue to stir the mix slowly, making sure that all of theegg white comes into contact with the liquor. You should see wisps of denatured eggwhite throughout the mix. If you have a centrifuge, you can spin the mix now andcollect the clear washed booze. Alternatively, let the mix sit for several minutes andthen stir again. Allow the mix to settle for several hours and strain it first through acloth napkin and then through a coffee filter.

When you have a clear liquid, add the water, lemon juice or citric acid, simple syrupand saline solution or salt. Chill the mix down to –6° C (20° F) and carbonate with themethod of your choice (see the Carbonation section, here). Note: you’ll have someresidual egg protein in this drink, so it will foam quite a bit when you carbonate.

EGG WASHING THE CABERNET AND COGNAC: This recipe uses much more egg than regular eggwashing; 1) add no water to the egg. 2) Pour the cabernet and cognac into the egg while stirring. 3) It willlook momentarily chalky, 4) then break. Stir to mop up the cloudy bits and allow to settle before coffeefiltering.

I’ve figured out an even better technique for mellowing aged liquors that don’trequire too much stripping prior to carbonation, but it calls for some specialtyingredients: chitosan and gellan. Keep reading, or skip ahead to the CarbonatedWhiskey Sour, here, and use egg-washed whiskey to make it.

Chitosan/Gellan WashingWhen I began clarifying apple juice years ago, I really wanted to make a refreshingcarbonated apple cocktail with bourbon, but the oak flavors dominated the apple andbecame unpleasantly harsh. My solution at the time was to redistill the bourbon with arotary evaporator. Unlike a typical still, the rotary evaporator can distill at lowtemperatures and recover almost 100 percent of the volatile flavors that get boiled offduring the distillation process. I would split the bourbon into two parts: a clear liquidcontaining all the alcohol plus the aromas from the oak and the base spirit, and a darkopaque liquid with all the nonvolatile oak extractives that were messing with mycarbonated drink. Since unaged clear bourbon is known as white dog, I called myredistilled clear bourbon gray dog—and it is pretty darn good, even on its own. I usedthe leftover oak extractives to make a great ice cream. Efficiency!

Now, redistillation has some problems. First, the equipment is expensive andthere’s a pretty steep learning curve. Second, and more important, it is illegal to distillliquor without a license here in the United States, and a bar can’t ever get that license.Distilling at the bar puts the liquor license in jeopardy, which, once I owned a bar, Icould not abide. After I began booze washing, I experimented with combinations ofwashing ingredients that would produce an aged whiskey or brandy that could becarbonated well, was foolproof, and removed only the flavors that scratch the back ofmy throat when I drink carbonated unmodified whiskey. I finally settled on a two-step(and fully legal) process using chitosan and gellan gum.

If you’ve read the section on carbonation, you’ve met chitosan, one of the magicwine fining agents that I use to clarify lime juice in the centrifuge. Chitosan is a long-chain polysaccharide (sugar) with a positive charge, commercially produced from theshells of shrimp, but it does not cause reactions in people with shellfish allergies. Youcan get it in liquid-solution form at any home winemaking shop. Unfortunately, thechitosan on the market today is not vegetarian, but that will change. As I write, vegan-friendly fungal chitosan is available in Europe. Chitosan, as a positively chargedmolecule, is going to attract the negatively charged oak polyphenols in whiskeys andbrandies. The problem is, now you have to remove the chitosan. For that I use gellan.

Gellan is a gelling agent derived from microbial fermentation and is primarilyused in cooking. Gellan has a lot of interesting properties. It can form fluids that, whenstanding still, can act like gels to make drinks with suspended solid particles (note: I

don’t like this application for cocktails). It can form any texture, from soft and elasticto hard and brittle. It is heatproof. But none of these cool properties are important forus here. Despite what the manufacturers planned, we aren’t going to use gellan to makea gel at all. For booze washing, all we are concerned with is gellan’s negative charge,which makes it attract the chitosan; and its insolubility in booze, which makes it easyto filter out. There are two types of gellan: low-acyl gellan, aka Kelcogel F, and high-acyl gellan, aka Kelcogel LT100, both made by the CP Kelco corporation. Typicallythe Kelcogel F makes hard, brittle gels and the high-acyl gellan makes soft, elasticgels. For booze washing you should use the Kelcogel F, because unlike the high-acylvariety, it doesn’t swell in water at all and cause us to lose precious, precious booze.The names are random and confusing, but there’s nothing we can do about that. Justremember: Kelcogel F low-acyl gellan.

Original blended Scotch on left, chitosan-gellan washed Scotch in the middle and egg-washed Scotch onright. Note the different stripping intensity of the two techniques.

Chitosan/Gellan Washing Technique

15 grams liquid chitosan solution (2% of the booze amount)750 ml booze to wash15 grams Kelcogel F low-acyl gellan (2% of the booze amount)

PROCEDUREAdd the chitosan to the booze and shake or stir to combine. Allow to rest for an hour,

agitating periodically. Add the gellan to the booze and shake or stir to suspend thegellan. Resuspend the gellan in the booze every 15 to 30 minutes and allow the gellanto remain with the booze for 2 hours, then strain the liquor through a coffee filter. Youare done.

NOTES: This recipe uses 2 percent chitosan. That’s a lot of chitosan. For comparison, I use 0.2 percent inclarification—an order of magnitude less. I tested the recipe using less chitosan, and strangely, using lesschitosan seemed to strip the liquor more. Yeah, I don’t get it either, but it is hard to argue with empirical data.Two percent gellan is also a lot of gellan to use, much more than is used to make a gellan gel (0.5 percentlow-acyl gellan makes a hard gel). The reason I use so much is that I’m using only the surface of the gellanpowder. The vast majority of the gellan is on the inside of the granules and is useless to us. I could use lessgellan if I used a finer particle size, but finer gellan isn’t readily available.

Speaking of surface area, remember from the wine fining discussion that adsorptive flavor-strippingingredients such as activated charcoal work by having tremendous surface area in which flavor moleculescan get trapped. I wondered how much flavor-stripping gellan would do on its own owing to surface areaeffects, so I tested just gellan, without the chitosan. It did strip out some flavor, but not too much.

CHITOSAN-GELLAN WASHING: 1) Once you have the ingredients, this technique is preposterously easyand the yield is high. 2) Add chitosan to liquor. Stir and let sit for an hour. 3 and 4) Add the gellan and stir.Stir and let settle a couple more times over the course of 2 hours, then 5) strain through a coffee filter. 6)Look at the leftover gellan. All that color is the stuff you stripped out.

Carbonated Whiskey SourHere is a simple carbonated drink to test booze washing. If you don’t want to usechitosan/gellan washing, you can use egg washing instead. If you haven’t already, readthe Carbonation section for carbonation technique (here).MAKES ONE 52⁄5-OUNCE (162.5-ML) DRINK AT 15.2% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.2 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.44% ACID

INGREDIENTS25⁄8 ounces (79 ml) filtered water13⁄4 ounces (52.5 ml) chitosan/gellan washed bourbon (47% alcohol byvolume)5/8 ounce (19 ml) simple syrup2 drops saline solution or a pinch of saltShort 1⁄2 ounce (12 ml) clarified lemon juice (or add the same amount ofunclarified lemon juice after you carbonate)

PROCEDURECombine everything (except the lemon juice if it isn’t clarified), chill to 14°F (–10°C), and carbonate with whatever system you choose.

What I’ve presented here on booze washing only scratches the surface of thepossible. There’s lots more for you to discover on your own. But, as I promised at thebeginning of the section, I will move on to a bit on fat washing, a technique forwashing flavor into (instead of out of) booze.

A Short Word on Fat WashingFat washing is simple. Anyone can do it. Pick a flavorful fat or oil. Common choicesare butter, bacon fat, olive oil, peanut butter, sesame oil—whatever. Whatever fat youchoose, make sure it tastes good. Just because you like bacon doesn’t mean all baconfat is good—properly rendered bacon fat is delicious; fat from overcooked bacon isgross. Butter that has been unwrapped in your fridge is gross. Your fat needs to befresh and delicious. Next, ask yourself how strong your fat is. Smoky bacon fat isstrong in flavor; butter is more delicate. With stronger-flavored fats, use a ratio of

around 120 grams (4 ounces) of fat per 750 ml of liquor. With butter I use closer to240 grams (8 ounces) per 750 ml.

If your fat is a solid at room temperature, melt it. If not, move on.

Add the fat to your liquor in a wide-mouth container, close it, and shake thecontainer (you shake to increase the surface area where the liquor contacts the fat).The wide-mouth container will make it easier for you to get the liquor separated fromthe fat later on. Let the liquor rest an hour or so, agitating every once in a while for thefirst half hour, and then proceed to the next step.

Most of the fatty stuff should have floated to the top by now. Place the containerof liquor and fat in the freezer. Most fats will form a nice puck at the top after a coupleof hours in the freezer; just poke a hole in the fat puck, pour the clear, flavored liquorthrough a coffee filter into a bottle, and you are done. If your fat will not solidify(olive oil won’t, for example), you can use a gravy separator or a separatory funnel(that’s what I use) to separate the fat from the liquor.

Fat washing is a great technique, but I don’t use it very often, because some of mygood friends—Sam Mason and Eben Freeman, formerly of Tailor; Tona Palomino,formerly of wd~50; and Don Lee, formerly of PDT—were its real pioneers, so I leaveit to them.

FAT WASHING GIN WITH OLIVE OIL IN A SEPARATORY FUNNEL (SEP FUNNEL): 1) Combine ginand olive oil in the funnel and cover tightly. 2 and 3) Shake violently to combine. Do this several times, a fewminutes apart, and 4) allow to settle. The beauty of the sep funnel: 5) it allows you to drain the heavier liquidbooze off the bottom without disturbing the liquid fat on top. 6) The steep conical shape of the sep funnelencourages settling and allows you to get almost every drop of gin separated from the oil.

Peanut Butter and Jelly with a Baseball BatIn 2007 Tona Palomino, who ran the bar program at the famed restaurant wd~50 at thetime, made a carbonated peanut butter and jelly cocktail called the Old-School.

Because he was carbonating, Tona went to great pains to keep the liquor clear. Wedon’t have to worry about that because we are going to make a shaken cocktail. If youwant clear liquor that you can carbonate, you’ll have to do what Tona did: spread athin layer of peanut butter on the bottom of a hotel pan and then pour a thin layer ofbooze over the top and let it sit covered in a fridge for days.

PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY VODKA INGREDIENTS25 ounces (750 ml) vodka (40% alcohol by volume)120 grams creamy peanut butter125–200 grams Concord grape jelly

PROCEDUREThoroughly mix the vodka and peanut butter. Put the mix in a covered container andplace it in the freezer for several hours to settle out. If you have a centrifuge, spin themix; you should have a yield of around 85 percent (635 ml). If you don’t have a ’fuge,pour the mix through a cloth napkin to remove the big particles and then pass thestrained liquid through a coffee filter. The coffee filter will clog frequently, so you’llneed to use several. The booze should be clearish. Using the napkin-and-coffee filtermethod, you should get a yield between 60 and 70 percent (450–525 ml). Don’t useexpensive vodka! Add a shade over 30 grams (a heavy ounce) of grape jelly to every100 ml of peanut butter vodka and shake or blend to combine. Strain the mix to get ridof any stray jelly particles, and you’re done.

MAKING THE PEANUT BUTTER VODKA: 1) The vodka and peanut butter have settled in the freezer forseveral hours. Either centrifuge them, or 2) strain first through a cloth, 3) then through a coffee filter.

MAKES ONE 47⁄10 OUNCE (140 ML) DRINK AT 17.3% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 9.0 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.77% ACID

PB&J WITH A BASEBALL BAT INGREDIENTS21⁄2 ounces (75 ml) Peanut Butter and Jelly Vodka (32.5% alcohol byvolume)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lime juice2 drops saline solution of a pinch of salt

PROCEDURECombine the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with copious ice and shake for just 6seconds. Don’t overshake; this drink is not good when overdiluted. Strain into achilled coupe glass and enjoy.

CarbonationCarbon dioxide gas (CO2) gives bubbly drinks their distinctive taste. The taste ofcarbonation is difficult to describe. I call it prickly, but that doesn’t get it quite right.Carbonation is hard to describe because, as was recently discovered, we havespecific elements in our mouths that sense CO2. In other words, carbonation is anactual taste, like salty and sour. You’d be hard-pressed to describe those tastes aswell. Current research indicates that our carbonation sense is related to our sense ofsour, but carbonation doesn’t taste acidic. People used to think that the sensation ofcarbonation was due to pain in the mouth caused by the acidity of carbonic acid(formed when CO2 dissolves in water) combined with the mechanical action of thebursting bubbles. Clearly not true. You can make bubbly drinks with nitrous oxide(N2O), aka laughing gas, but because N2O tastes sweet instead of prickly, the drinkwon’t taste carbonated, even if you add acid to the drink. Carbonation is an ingredient,like salt or sugar.

Carbonated drinks are supersaturated with CO2, meaning that they have more gasin them than they can permanently hold—that’s why they bubble. The more CO2 a drinkcontains, the sharper the carbonation tastes. Controlling that sharpness is the art ofcarbonation.

Using premade bubbly mixers cedes cocktail bubble control to the mixer, whichisn’t a good thing. Most commercial mixers are low quality. Even good mixers candeliver only meager bubbles to a finished cocktail once they’ve been diluted byalcohol and melted ice. Put simply, if you want bubbles done right, you’ll have tocarbonate your cocktails yourself.

BUBBLE PHILOSOPHYI grew up drinking bubbly water, and it has been my primary form of hydration fordecades. Flat water is, well, flat by comparison. When I ask for sparkling water, Iwant the throat-ripping experience of copious carbonation. I believe this is a veryAmerican preference, and I’m suspicious of any native son or daughter who preferslightly carbonated water. But not all drinks benefit from maximum carbonation. Someeffervescent cocktails taste good with puny bubbles. Carbonation is an ingredient, andtoo much is as bad as too little. Many American sparkling wines, for instance, areovercarbonated and taste better after they sit for a while. Overcarbonation can destroythe nuance of fruit flavors, overemphasize oaky and tannic flavors, and add a harshcarbon dioxide bite.

The goal of carbonation is to control the bubbles in your drink. You should beable to conjure up the exact level of carbonation that you desire. While there has been

a recent proliferation of relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use equipment offeringwide access to carbonation, most carbonation technique at the bar remains poor.Carbonating water is fairly easy; even subpar equipment and lax technique canproduce decent sparkling water, so people are lulled into thinking the samecarelessness will suffice when they move on to carbonated cocktails. Not so. Onlygreat care and perfect technique can achieve good carbonation in an alcoholicbeverage. If you understand how carbonation works, you can hone your carbonationtechnique and achieve good results even with suboptimal equipment. So before we getinto specific carbonation techniques, a word on how bubbles work. Expect detail andminutiae. If you have no patience, you can skip to Carbonation in a Nutshell, here.

BUBBLES 101The amount of CO2 that a bottled drink contains is primarily a function of twoparameters, temperature and pressure (well, okay, it is also a function of the ratio ofheadspace to liquid, but we can safely ignore that variable). The higher the pressure inthe bottle, the more CO2 the drink will contain. More accurately, the higher thepressure of CO2 in the headspace above the drink, the more CO2 the drink will contain(in chemistry this fact is known as Henry’s law). If the pressure in the headspacecomes from regular air as well as CO2, there will be less CO2 dissolved in the drink—one of the reasons that air is an enemy of good carbonation.

At a given pressure, the amount of CO2 a liquid can hold increases as it getscolder. In a sealed bottle the amount of CO2 can’t change, so as the temperature goesup, so does the pressure, and as the temperature goes down, so does the pressure. Thetwo are tied together.

How fast the CO2 gets into your drink is a different story. Simply applying CO2 tothe empty space above a drink doesn’t carbonate it very quickly at all, because theCO2 can diffuse into the drink only through the relatively small surface area of theliquid at rest. Just as you chill a drink with ice by stirring or shaking to bring freshcocktail in contact with fresh ice, you carbonate by radically increasing the freshsurface area that the drink shares with the CO2. You can achieve this by shaking thedrink under pressure, or by injecting large amounts of tiny CO2 bubbles into the drink,or by spraying the drink as a mist into a pressurized container of CO2. I don’t care howyou do it—just up the surface area.

LE CHÂTELIERStrangely, the reason the solubility of CO2 goes up as temperature goes down is that CO2 releases energywhen it dissolves in liquid; the reaction is exothermic. In fact, the heat from dissolving CO2 in a highly

carbonated drink can raise its temperature by over 5°C!

My assumptions: dissolution enthalpy of CO2 = 563 calories per gram. carbonation level = 10 grams perliter, beverage = pure water

The temperature rise is a rarely considered consequence of carbonation, but it is the reason we can apply oneof the fundamental principles of chemistry, Le Châtelier’s principle. Named after the French chemist HenryLouis Le Châtelier, Le Châtelier’s principle states that if you push a chemical system away from equilibrium,that system will tend to push back toward equilibrium. If you have bubbly water and CO2 at a giventemperature and you remove heat from the system by making the bubbly water colder, Le Châtelier’sprinciple says that the system will react by trying to make more heat. How? By making more CO2 dissolve.True? Yes. Intuitive? No.

TINY BUBBLESMany people think they want tiny bubbles. They think tiny bubbles are a hallmark ofquality. The singer Don Ho immortalized those “Tiny Bubbles in the Wine” and set theconsuming public on a seemingly inexorable path toward bubble prejudice. But let’slook at how bubble size is determined. In a highly carbonated drink, more CO2 rushesinto the bubbles at any given time, making bigger bubbles. Similarly, the warmer adrink is, the more CO2 tries to leave, making larger bubbles. Last, the taller you pour adrink, the larger the bubbles become, because they have longer to live and grow fromwhere they form till they pop at the surface of the drink. None of these bubble-sizefactors are markers of quality.

The composition of the drink also influences bubble size. Different drinks—let’ssay a glass of champagne and a gin and tonic—carbonated to the same level andserved at the same temperature in the same kind of glass will have different bubblesizes. The ingredients of a drink affect how easily bubbles are formed, how fast theygrow, and how much CO2 wants to leave. Even among fairly similar liquids, likedifferent white wines, the grape variety and the amount of yeast breakdown productsradically affect bubble size. Different bubble sizes in these cases are not hallmarks ofquality but a function of drink composition.

So how did the tiny-equals-good mythical equation arise? An analysis ofchampagne aging helps. Young champagne has a lot of carbonation and fairly largebubbles. As champagne ages, CO2 gradually diffuses through the cork, which is not ahermetic seal, and lowers the carbonation, producing tinier bubbles. So in champagne,weaker carbonation correlates with greater age. Since only fine vintage champagnesare typically aged very long, age and the tiny bubbles it brings denote quality.Additionally, recent research shows that as champagne ages, its composition changes,so that for a given level of CO2, old champagne will have smaller bubbles. So inchampagne, tiny bubbles correlate with age, which can often correlate with quality(we tend to age only fine champagne). Certainly the tiny bubbles aren’t the cause of thequality. If I take a lousy sparkling wine and partially decarbonate it, I will end up with

an equally lousy sparkling wine with tiny bubbles. If I take great vintage champagneand up the carbonation, it will still be great, but with bigger bubbles.

SABERING CHAMPAGNE AND OTHER BUBBLY WINESWhile not really a carbonation technique, a section on bubbles seems the most apt place to describe saberinga bottle of champagne.

Many people feel that sabering sparkling wine is useless and wasteful. I disagree. Sabering expensivechampagne is wasteful (if you make a mistake). Sabering a $7 cava is an exhilarating, awesome party trick.Whether a bottle will saber depends only on the bottle, not the price of the wine, so stick with the inexpensive.

Sabering is the art of cleanly knocking the top off a bottle of sparkling wine. You hit the lower lip of the top ofthe champagne bottle and snap off the top of the neck. Yes, you break the glass. No, the glass doesn’t getinto the drink, because the momentum carries it away from the neck. Sabering works because there is a ledgewhere the lip meets the neck. Stress concentrates at this ledge, making the bottle want to snap cleanly. Youwill get small shards of glass on the floor, so be careful. If you have young children, be doubly careful; I knowfrom bitter experience that glass shards will find tiny feet the next morning. Obviously, saber away from anypeople and don’t aim toward mirrors or closed windows. And don’t saber over food, unless you’re a glass-eating circus freak.

When you saber a bottle of bubbly, avoid swinging your knife in an arc. With confidence, swiftly andsmoothly run the back of your knife squarely up the side seam of the bottle, strike the glass lip, and“punch” the glass collar and cork off of the bottle. This trick takes no strength—except strength ofwill. Don’t hesitate or pull back.

THE PROCEDURESelect a bottle that looks pretty standard. Don’t pick one with a funky neck—sabering might not work.Superimportant tip: if you are sabering in front of a crowd you’re looking to impress, select a bottle you knowwill saber. If you sabered a particular brand before (Paul Chenaux cava, for instance, or Gruet sparkling),odds are it will work again. If you have failed with a bottle before (Cristalino Cava), you will probably failagain. Embarrassing! A corollary to this tip: practice first to figure out which bottles will work.

Chill the bottle. Let it rest upright for a while before you saber it, and be gentle with the bottle before yousaber. Warmer bottles are easier to saber but tend to gush. The best saber jobs don’t gush at all (take that,anti-saber snobs). Don’t take off the wire cage until you are ready, lest the cork come out on its own. Somepeople saber with the cage on, but I think it’s more difficult.

Get a knife. It doesn’t need to be heavy. It doesn’t need to be sharp. In fact, it doesn’t even need to be aknife—I made a stainless steel ring for sabering at parties. You’ll use the back (dull) side of the knife, not thesharp one. I saw a friend forget this rule one night and ruin her host’s good chef’s knife.

Find the seam running up the side of the bottle; this seam is a weak point and further concentrates the stresswhen you hit the lip. Angle the bottle away from you, your friends, any glass, and any food. Place the knife onthe bottle’s seam at the bottom of the neck, making sure you keep the knife flat against the bottle. If youdon’t, the knife has a tendency to pop over the lip of the bottle.

The moment of truth: slide the knife smoothly, surely, and SQUARELY up the neck of the bottle and severthe top. It doesn’t take force, just confidence. The biggest and most common mistake: swinging the knife inan arc. If you swing in an arc, even a small one, you won’t hit the glass in the right place and you won’t severthe neck. Mortifiying.

If it doesn’t work, try one more time, maybe two. Don’t try five or six times on the same bottle. Whackingaway seems desperate. If the bottle doesn’t want to saber and you force it to, you might get a bad break,shattering the bottle completely.

Remember that the momentum carries all the glass shards away from the neck and your drink (that’s why Itold you to hold it at an angle). Pour with confidence and enjoy.

Turns out I always blink during the money moment.

My Carbon Dioxide/Nitrous mixing rig. I took apart and modified a Smith gas mixer designed for mixingwelding gases, converting it from a flow-based device to a pressure-based one that allows me to carbonateat any pressure up to 60 psi with any ratio of CO2 to N2O.

An alternative to the mixing rig: make pre-mixed gas cylinders.

The quantity of CO2 in a drink, not bubble size, is the most important carbonationcharacteristic. The amount of CO2 escaping from the drink determines how rough andbiting that drink will be and how the volatile aromas will be punched into the airabove the glass to greet your nose. Sometimes I want to make extremely lively drinkswith huge bubbles that effervesce massively on the tongue and eject a lot of aromacompounds toward your nose. If I were to create those drinks using only CO2, theywould sting your nose painfully as you tried to drink. Instead I make superbubbleswith a gas mix. Remember that nitrous oxide (N2O) is highly soluble in water andtastes not sharp but sweet. When I add a percentage of nitrous to my carbonateddrinks, the result is big lively bubbles that aren’t painful. The gas-mixing system is abit involved, and unless you are a dentist, tanks of N2O are hard to come by (peoplesometimes abuse it as a drug and die when they fall asleep with a nitrous mask on), soI won’t tell you how to do it, but if you can decode what is going on from a picture ofmy rig, go for it.

HOW MUCH CO2 IS IN MY DRINK?When I quote carbonation levels, I use grams of CO2 per liter of beverage (g/l). If youread technical soda literature, you’ll notice that CO2 is measured in an arcane unitcalled “volumes of CO2.” A volume of CO 2 equals 2 g/l of CO2 (see the sidebar on

volumes of CO2, here). Your average cola contains about 7 g/l. Orange soda and rootbeer have less carbonation, typically around 5 g/l. Mixers such as tonic water, whichare supposed to be watered down with booze, and seltzer water, which is supposed torip your throat out with bubbly goodness, have much more carbonation—around 8 or 9g/l. In nonalcoholic drinks, levels much above 9 g/l become painful. But withalcoholic drinks, it’s a different story.

IMPORTANT CARBONATION PROPERTY OF ALCOHOLCO2 is more soluble in alcohol than in water, so less CO2 escapes a boozy drink to hityour tongue. Because the sensation of carbonation depends on CO2 leaving your drinkand hitting your tongue, you need to put more CO2 into an alcoholic drink to have ittaste as carbonated as its nonalcoholic cousins. According to the literature, youngchampagne, which is 12.5 percent alcohol by volume, can have as much as 11.5 to 12g/l of CO2 dissolved in it. That much CO2 in seltzer would be horrific. Frankly, it’s toomuch CO2 for champagne as well, but it won’t rip your face off.

In general, the more alcohol a drink contains, the more CO2 you will need toadd when carbonating.

Measuring carbonation is a tricky business, and in practice I don’t do it. I justcarbonate my drinks at a constant temperature and pressure. If I don’t like the results, Imaintain the temperature and dial the pressure up or down. It is sometimes useful,however, to measure how much CO2 you are putting into your drink. The easiest wayto measure CO2 is to weigh your drink before and after the carbonation procedure(with the cap off). The extra weight is the CO2 you’ve dissolved into your drink. Youshould convert your answer to grams per liter.

HOW TO MEASURE THE AMOUNT OF CO2 YOU ADD TO A DRINK: 1) Weigh the un-carbonated liquid

on a scale in the carbonator bottle without the cap. 2) Carbonate. 3) Weigh the bottle again with the cap off.The weight on the scale is the weight of added CO2—in this case 4.3 grams into 500 ml. It’s important thatyou remove the cap so that the scale does not register the weight of compressed CO2 in the bottle.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT CARBONATION PROPERTY OFALCOHOL: CARBONATING RESPONSIBLYCarbonated cocktails can get you majorly shellacked. CO2 really helps to get ethanol into your bloodstream.That old saw about champagne going to your head is not a myth. Alcohol is absorbed mainly in your smallintestine, not your stomach. The faster alcohol gets to your intestine, the faster you can absorb it and thefaster, and higher, your blood alcohol content (BAC) can spike. The current wisdom is that the CO2 in drinkshelps speed gastric emptying into your small intestines, causing a rapid rise in BAC. Compounding the issue,people are accustomed to drinking carbonated drinks rather quickly, so they do, regardless of alcohol content.

The takeaway message here is to keep the alcohol levels of your carbonated drinks down. When I firststarted carbonating drinks, I regularly carbonated cocktails at shaken and stirred drink dilutions: 20 to 26percent alcohol. People were on the floor in short order. This outcome was not my goal, and I’m sure it’s notyours. Nowadays my carbonated cocktails average between 14 and 17 percent alcohol by volume. Thesedrinks are more civilized and taste better. As you will see, drinks with less alcohol have better carbonation,last longer in the glass, and are less cloying than higher-alcohol versions.

THE PROBLEM OF FOAMING AND THE THREE C’S OFCARBONATIONCO2 in the bottle is great, but it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if it never makes it toyour tongue. What’s important is the CO2 your drink has in the glass. When you open abottle of bubbly and pour a drink, you lose carbonation—maybe a lot of it. GerardLiger-Belair, the champagne physicist (yes, that is a real job, and you are too late toget it), has studied the phenomenon of CO2 loss in champagne quite closely. Hisstudies show that uncorking a bottle of fridge-temperature champagne and pouring itcarefully down the side of an inclined glass—the best-case pouring scenario—canlower the amount of CO2 in the champagne from 11.5 grams per liter to 9.8 grams perliter. That loss is probably a good thing; 11.5 grams per liter is too intenselycarbonated. Carelessly pouring that same champagne into the same glass reduces thecarbonation to 8.4 grams per liter, my lower limit for good carbonation in a freshglass of young champagne. If you open the same champagne when it’s roomtemperature, you can knock a couple more grams per liter off those numbers. If youopen a bottle carelessly and it gushes out the neck and over the side, the problem ismuch, much worse. Gushing, or fobbing as it is called in the soda business, candestroy precious carbonation lickety-split. In fact, foaming is carbonation’s biggestenemy. Nine-tenths of good carbonation is foam control.

VOLUMES OF CO2 for Ideal Gas Law FansIn the 1800s an Italian dude named Avogadro figured out that at equal temperatures and pressures, equalvolumes of gases contain the same number of molecules regardless of how much those molecules weigh: adeep insight. Remember that. In a related story, the chemistry community named an important number afterAvogadro—Avogadro’s number, which equals 6.022x1023, which is mind-bogglingly huge. Avogadro’snumber is important because it helps us to shift between weights on an atomic scale and a macroscopic scale.Different kinds of atoms and molecules have different weights. Those weights are expressed in a relativelyuseless unit, the atomic mass unit (amu). Avogadro’s number is the conversion factor between atomic massunits and grams. If you know that the mass of a single molecule of CO2 is 44.01 amu, you know that6.022X1023 CO2 molecules weigh exactly 44.01 grams. Unfortunately, you also have to remember anotherunit, because a pile of CO2 containing Avogadro’s number of molecules isn’t called an Avogadro of CO2, it iscalled a mole. The mole is one of the most important units in chemistry—it allows you to work with ratios ofactual molecules using grams.

Okay, so one mole of CO2 has a mass of 44.01 grams and contains 6.023x1023 molecules. Back toAvogadro’s original hypothesis: one mole of gas at standard temperature and pressure (hereinafter referred toas STP) will fill up the same volume regardless of how much that mole weighs. Ideal gas law fans willremember that the volume of one mole of gas at STP is 22.4 liters. So one mole of CO2 at STP will occupy22.4 liters and weigh 44.01 grams.

Finally we can come back to the arcane unit of carbonation: volumes of CO2. One volume of CO2 is definedas the mass of CO2 gas, in grams, that would fill a particular volume, in liters, at STP. That is 44.01 gramsdivided by 22.4 liters: roughly 2 g/l. Sufficiently arcane?

CO2 leaves a drink in two ways: directly from the surface of the drink and throughbubbles. The first path is controlled by the glass. Roughly, the less surface area ofdrink is exposed per unit of volume, the less CO2 you lose per unit of time. This is whychampagne flutes and other tall glasses are good for carbonated drinks, and why youshould fill them high if they are going to sit around for a while (more volume for thesame exposed surface area).

Controlling how much CO2 leaves in bubble form is more difficult. If you pour aperfectly clear carbonated liquid into a perfectly clean, perfectly smooth glass, you getno bubbles—none—because in a pure liquid it is extremely hard to form a bubble.Bubbles in bubbly drinks inflate the same way a balloon does. The pressure of CO2 inthe drink is higher than it is in the bubble, so the bubble blows up like a balloon. Thesurface tension of the liquid surrounding the bubble acts like the rubber in a balloon toresist inflation. Bubbles are also like balloons in that the smaller they are, the harderthey are to blow up. There is a critical bubble radius—dependent on the liquid’ssurface tension and the pressure of CO2 in the drink—below which any bubble formedwill get crushed back to nothing. Any bubble larger than that critical radius will tendto grow. Surprisingly, you can’t just raise the pressure to initiate bubbles. You’d needhundreds of times more CO2 than you get in ordinary bubbly drinks to formspontaneous bubbles.

What you need to form bubbles are nucleation sites: anything in or touching aliquid that enables bubbles to form. Bubbles like to form on anything that isdiscontinuous or already contains trapped gas. In a glass, those nucleation sites cantake the form of scratches or marks in the glass, or leftover minerals or schmutz fromwashing, or, most famously, leftover fibers from the towels used to dry and polish. Inthe drink itself, nucleation sites come from suspended particles, dissolved and trappedgas, or any currently existing bubbles. If you have too many nucleation sites, there aretoo many places where CO2 can form and rush into bubbles, and you get gushing.Gushing loses tremendous amounts of CO2. Even worse, nucleation sites keepnucleating for the life of the drink. Drinks with lots of nucleation sites lose lots of gasright away and continue to lose it faster than drinks with fewer nucleation sites.

The water on the left is highly carbonated. It is not bubbling at all because the glass has no nucleation sites—I analytically cleaned the glass so it was free of all residue. Drop a rock of sugar into the drink and itimmediately starts bubbling.

You can’t eliminate nucleation sites, but you can reduce them or limit the effectthey have by following the three C’s of carbonation: clarity, coldness, andcomposition.

C #1: CLARITYIf your drink isn’t clear, it won’t be easy to carbonate. I clarify everythingI’m going to carbonate. Some commercially carbonated drinks are cloudy,

such as Orangina, but notice that they have very light carbonation and noalcohol. Even adding small amounts of unclarified juice to a highlycarbonated cocktail can cause major foaming. Notice that the flip side ofclear isn’t colored or dark, it’s cloudy. Colored drinks are okay. Drinks thathave so much color they appear opaque, like red wine and cola, are stillokay to carbonate if they aren’t cloudy when you hold them up to the light.The first duty of the carbonation maven is to clarify. To learn how, see thesection on clarification (here). If you don’t want to clarify, chooseingredients that are already clear. If you absolutely must use cloudyingredients, use small amounts and add them at the end, after you havecarbonated the bulk of your drink.

C #2: COLDNESSWarm drinks bubble and foam violently when they are opened. Some peopletry to fix the foaming problem by jacking the pressure to add more gas. Thiswon’t work. Once a drink foams violently when it is opened, you haveexceeded the level of CO2 that the drink can viably hold. Increasing thepressure beyond that point will actually reduce the amount of CO2 you get inthe glass, because the foaming will get worse and worse. I have seen manypeople boost carbonation pressures higher and higher, only to find theirdrinks tasting flatter and flatter. Better to chill your drink properly first.

How cold should you chill? My rule of thumb is, as cold as possible: at,or just above, the freezing point of the beverage. The colder you get yourdrinks, the more CO2 they can hold without foaming and the less carbonationyou’ll lose when you serve them. I carbonate water-based drinks at 0°Celsius. I carbonate most of my cocktails between –6°C and –10°C (21°Fand 14°F). Very highly alcoholic drinks, such as carbonated straight shots, Icarbonate at –20°C (–4°F).

If you chill your drink too much, it will start to freeze and form zillions oftiny ice crystals. Tiny ice crystals are fabulous nucleation sites. If you opena bottle with those crystals, you’ll produce huge quantities of bubble-robbing foam. As long as the bottle is sealed, don’t worry—you won’t losecarbonation. Don’t open the bottle until the ice crystals have melted. Oncethey melt, your drink will be in top form.

A last note on temperature: your carbonation will be more consistent ifyou maintain a constant temperature when you carbonate. If you try tocarbonate at any old temperature, you will never get consistent results.Remember, as the temperature goes up or down, so does the pressurerequired to reach a particular level of carbonation.

C #3: COMPOSITIONA cold clarified drink can still foam because of its composition. We’llbreak the composition problem into three parts: suds, air, and alcohol.

Suds:Some ingredients, even when totally clarified, foam like demons.Clarified milk whey, which I use in a lot of uncarbonated drinks, is fullof protein, and protein loves to make foams. I always suspected thatwhey would pose problems, but other ingredients, like cucumber juice,surprise me with their foamy intransigence. In general, if ingredientshave a large amount of protein, emulsifiers, or surfactants, or areviscous, you can plan on dealing with foam. A good way to know ifyou’ll have problems is to shake some of your test ingredient in a clearcontainer and observe the foam. Does it make a layer of foam on top? Ifit does, does the foam break down rapidly? The foamier and morepersistent the suds are, the harder it will be to carbonate youringredient. Other than avoiding such ingredients, your only option forcontrolling foam is to cover your other bases properly: clarify, chill,and carbonate carefully. I have tried using antifoaming agents likepolydimethylsiloxane to help fix the foam problem. No luck. I’m kindof glad. Who wants to say they add polydimethylsiloxane to theircocktails?

Air:As I’ve mentioned before, air is an enemy of carbonation. Besidestaking up space in the bottle that is better used by CO2, air causesfoaming. Small amounts of air trapped on microscopic dust specks aremajor nucleation sites. In addition, the small amounts of air dissolvedin the drink itself, and the small air bubbles formed when a drink isagitated, inflate when you open a carbonated drink and produce loadsof annoying foam. Luckily, the solution is simple: carbonate more thanonce.

I’ll say that again: to get good carbonation you must carbonatemore than once. An illustration of the procedure will show why.Carbonate your drink. Open it right away and let it foam. Don’t let itspray everywhere—that’s messy and wasteful—but let it foam. At thispoint you want the drink to foam. As the drink foams, it forms large,quickly expanding CO2 bubbles that carry with them a lot of the trappedair and other nonsense that was stuck in your drink. The CO2 rushingout of your drink also pushes air out of the headspace. After the foam

starts to settle, carbonate again and let it foam again. Notice that thistime it foams a bit less (you hope). Carbonate again. This time let thedrink settle before you ever so carefully and slowly release thepressure. After three rounds of carbonation you should have strong,stable, foam-resistant carbonation that lasts.

Alcohol:Adding alcohol makes drinks more difficult to carbonate. Alcohollowers surface tension and simultaneously increases viscosity—adouble whammy. Lower surface tension means bubbles can form moreeasily. Higher viscosity means that bubbles don’t dissipate quickly onthe surface. The upshot is that alcohol makes drinks foam, even if youdo everything else properly.

It gets worse. Remember that alcohol requires more CO2 thanwater to get the same feeling of carbonation on your tongue, becauseCO2 is more soluble in alcohol than in water. So when you add alcohol,you are in a real pickle. It automatically foams more than water, andyou have to add more CO2 to it than to water, increasing the foamingeven more. Ouch. This is one reason I keep my carbonated drinksbetween 14 and 17 percent alcohol by volume. For another reason tokeep the alcohol by volume down, see the sidebar on carbonatingresponsibly, here.

Last Word on FoamRemember, no matter how good you are at carbonation, your drink willfoam. If you don’t want your drink spraying everywhere when you openit, you need to leave enough headspace in your carbonation vessel.Learn from my mistakes.

Here I break all the rules of foam prevention. I’m quickly opening a recently agitated, poorly clarified, too-warm alcoholic drink—with predictable results.

FINALLY! HOW TO ACTUALLY CARBONATE SOMETHING:EQUIPMENT AND TECHNIQUESThere are a million ways to skin the carbonation cat. I’ll describe three. Hopefully youcan adapt one of these techniques to whatever equipment you have. The systems Idescribe will certainly become outmoded, but the principles of carbonation and howthey are applied are immutable.

TECHNIQUE ONE: BOTTLE, CAP, AND TANKThe easiest of the techniques: just use a special adapter to hook up a plasticsoda bottle to a large-format CO2 tank. This is the system I use at home andat the bar. It is simple, relatively cheap, and produces amazing results verypredictably for pennies per drink.

THE HARDWARECO2 TANK: I like this system because of the large tank and the regulator.Large CO2 tanks, as opposed to cartridges or minibottles, are superior,because the gas is much cheaper and you’ll make a whole lot of drinksbefore you run out. CO2 tank sizes are measured by how many pounds of CO2

the tank can safely hold. I use 20-pound tanks at home and at the bar, and 5-pounders when I do demonstrations on the go. A 20-pounder will just fit in astandard under-counter cabinet and will carbonate hundreds of gallons ofwater, wine, and cocktails.

You can rent a CO2 tank from your local welding supply shop, but just buy

one. As I am writing, a brand-new empty 20-pound CO2 tank can be had forless than $100. The folks at your local welding shop (you have one; you justneed to find it) will swap your empty tank for a full one and they’ll justcharge you for the gas. Depending on where you live, you will pay between$1 and $2 a pound for the gas. You need to chain or secure the tank in anupright position and keep it away from extreme heat. Before you use a tankyou must familiarize yourself with basic CO2 safety principles—not rocketscience, but you need to study them. Check the Internet—a number ofcompanies post advice.

CARBONATOR RIG: On right, a standard soda bottle. In the center, a 5-pound CO2 cylinder connected toa pressure regulator that can supply 120 psi of pressure. A gas hose comes out of the regulator andterminates in the gray ball-lock connector. In use, the red carbonator caps at left screw on the soda bottleand connect with the gray ball-lock connector.

REGULATOR: Your system will need a regulator to drop the highpressure of the tank—roughly 850 psi at room temperature—down to thelower pressures you’ll use for carbonation—30 to 45 psi. This regulatorenables you to effortlessly change the pressure with which you arecarbonating. Prices vary widely. If you are using the system at home, go forinexpensive regulators like the 0–60 psi regulators from Taprite, which willset you back only about $50. At the bar, where our regulators get regularabuse, I use heavy-duty models with protective cages over their pressuregauges (the most fragile part of the regulator). CO2 regulators have twogauges, one to show the pressure of the tank and one to show the pressure

coming out of the regulator. You cannot use the tank pressure to figure outhow much CO2 you have left. The majority of the CO2 in your tank is aliquid. As you take gas out of the tank, some of the liquid CO2 turns to gasand maintains a constant pressure inside the tank, so the gauge will still readfull pressure until the tank is almost empty. The weight of the tank and thesound of liquid sloshing about inside it are the only reliable measures ofCO2.

BALL-LOCK CONNECTOR: A length of reinforced hose will connectyour regulator to a special fitting called a ball-lock gas connector. Ball-lockconnectors are special doodads that were designed in the 1950s topressurize and dispense from 5-gallon soda kegs (one of two such systems;the other is known as pin-lock). Soda suppliers would ship the soda, knownas premix soda, to bars and restaurants in those kegs. The competing system,also designed in the 1950s, is called bag-in-box. With a bag-in-box system,syrup is added to carbonated water at the last minute, just before the drinkenters the glass. The two systems existed side-by-side for a while, but bag-in-box eventually won out and rendered soda kegs and their connectorsobsolete. In the 1990s and early years of this century, while bag-in-box wasconsolidating its hegemony over the fountain soda world, the market wasflooded with surplus premix soda kegs and connectors. Home brewerssnatched them up. Buying surplus, home brewers (yep, I was one) couldbrew, keg, and tap their beers in convenient 5-gallon quantities, almost forfree. Those were good times. Today the surplus is gone, but the homebrewer’s love is not, and the ball-lock soda fittings and kegs live on, at ahigher but still reasonable price.

Some crazy home brewers loved ball-lock fittings so much that they madea cap—the carbonator cap—to attach their beloved ball-lock fittingsdirectly to standard soda bottles. They weren’t trying to make a greatcocktail system; they just wanted an easy way to keep their beer carbonatedin small quantities. I started using them as soon as I found out about them,and they were quickly embraced by tech-minded cocktail folk. They costaround $15 apiece and last for many, many hundreds of carbonation cycles,as do the soda bottles you’ll use with them.

This entire carbonation rig—tank with gas, regulator, hoses, fittings, caps,and bottles—should cost you less than $200. Here is how to use it.

CARBONATING WITH BOTTLE, CAP, AND TANK: Turn on the CO2

gas cylinder and adjust your pressure (for most cocktails I use 42 psi.) Fill asoda bottle two-thirds to three-quarters full with very, very cold beverage.

At the bar I have a special freezer, the Randall FX, to chill my drinks toexactly the temperature I want—typically 7°C (20°F). At home you can justleave your drinks in the freezer till they get syrupy (high alcohol) or juststart forming ice crystals (lower alcohol). The ice crystals will melt as youcarbonate. You can also chill drinks with dry ice or liquid nitrogen, butmake sure neither gets into the bottle: explosion hazard!

Now squeeze all the extra air out of the bottle—remember that air is yourenemy—and screw on the carbonator cap. Use your fingers to pull up on thering around the ball-lock connector, press it down hard on the carbonatorcap, and release the ring. Many people have problems managing theconnector the first few times. You will get the hang of it pretty quickly. Assoon as the connector is on, the bottle will inflate quickly, which is fun towatch.

Now, with the gas connected, shake the drink like your life depends on it.You will hear and feel the gas leaving the tank and going into your drink.Sounds like the creaking hull of a ship. Don’t hold the bottle upside-downwhen you shake lest cocktail get into your gas line, which is icky. After youshake the drink, pop off the connector and crack open the carbonator cap tolet the drink foam up. Don’t unscrew the cap all the way, or you andeveryone around you will be covered in cocktail. After the foam has dieddown, carbonate again and foam again. Carbonate a third time and youshould be done.

Let the bottle rest for at least 30 seconds—longer is better, up to a minuteor two—before you open to pour. A little residual foam on the surface of thedrink is acceptable. The problem is bubbles in the drink itself. You want towait for all those bubbles to rise to the top and pop. You’ll know when youare ready to open because the drink will appear clear. When you open topour, crack the cap very gently. At this point you want to prevent foam.After you pour your drink, squeeze a little excess gas out of the bottle (incase some air got in), screw on the carbonator cap, and hit the bottle withCO2 again—a process I call fluffing. If you keep the temperature right andfluff every time you pour, the last cocktail you pour out of the bottle will beas good as the first.

I find that my results are best when my bottles are filled two-thirds tothree-quarters full. Any fuller and it is hard to defoam the drink. Any lessfull and it is hard to get the air out. I also feel in my heart that thecarbonation I get in an underfilled bottle isn’t as good, but my head doesn’tknow why. To make sure I’m always using optimum fill levels, I stock avariety of soda bottles: 2 liters, 1.5 liters, 1 liter, 20 ounces (591.5 ml),16.9 ounces (500 ml—Poland Spring makes these), and 12 ounces (354.9 ml

—hard to find, but Coke makes some). I use the 2 liters for large eventswhere I’m pouring a lot in a short time, although the sloshing you get whenyou pour out of a 2-liter bottle makes me wince. I use the 1-liter bottles atthe bar. The small 16.9- and 12-ounce bottles are superhandy to keep aroundfor recipe testing. They can carbonate a single drink.

Carbonating a vermouth cocktail with a carbonator cap. 1) Squeeze all the air out of your bottle. 2) Screwon the carbonator cap. 3) Pull up on the ring of ball-lock connector, push it down on the carbonator capand release the ring to apply gas. Sometimes it takes people a while to get the hang of this. 4) When thepressure of the gas is applied, the bottle inflates rapidly. 5) Shake. 6) Vent and allow foaming. 7) Pressurizeand shake again. 8) Vent and allow foaming. 9) Pressurize and shake again. 10) Wait until all bubblessubside and then gently open the bottle. 11) Pour at an angle. 12) The drink.

There are two downsides to this system: the recycled plastic bottles don’tlook sexy behind the bar, and the carbonation cycle takes a bit too long tomake individual drinks to order. Regardless, it’s the best system out there.

TECHNIQUE TWO: SODASTREAMThe Sodastream carbonator has revolutionized home carbonation. Themanufacturer warns you not to carbonate anything other than pure water, butyou can, provided you are careful. With water, Sodastreams aresupersimple to use: just fill the special bottle up to the fill line with coldwater, screw it into the machine, and press the carbonator button till themachine breaks wind. The Sodastream doesn’t require any shaking anddoesn’t require you to purge the headspace of the bottle. Instead, itsubmerges a carbonator wand just below the surface of the water. When youpush the button, the wand injects CO2 into the water, creating zillions of tiny

bubbles with their attendant surface area and obviating the need for shaking.At the same time, CO2 rushes out of the drink and pushes up into theheadspace. When the pressure in the bottle exceeds the factory-setcarbonation pressure, a relief valve opens up and lets the CO2 push the airout of the headspace with a rather impolite sound. Smart system. You can’tadjust the pressure in a Sodastream, but it can produce adequate carbonationin most cocktails.

The problem with carbonating cocktails is the pesky foam. If youcarbonate something that foams, you can clog the relief valve. If you clog therelief valve, the pressure that builds up can cause damage to the Sodastreamitself and, if the bottle ruptures or flies out of the machine, to anythingnearby.

The trick to carbonating wine or cocktails in the Sodastream: make sureyou never let the foam get all the way to the top of the bottle. You will notbe able to fill up the bottle to the fill line. In fact, don’t fill the bottle morethan one-third of the way to the fill line—about 11 ounces (330 ml), whichequals two drinks. You need to leave plenty of room for the drink to foam.At one-third full the carbonator wand will not be submerged. That’s okay.The force from the spraying CO2 is strong enough to create tiny carbonatingbubbles even if the wand isn’t submerged. You’ll just need to press thebutton a few more times and waste more CO2 than you would whencarbonating water. You can’t make less than two drinks, however, becauseif your fill level is too low, the CO2 won’t get injected well.

Therefore, in one sentence, the secret of the Sodastream is alwayscarbonate exactly two 5½-ounce (165-ml) drinks.

PLASTIC SODA BOTTLESPlastic soda bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate, aka PET (or PETE), the most common formof polyester. It’s the same stuff from which fine leisure suits are crafted. PET soda bottles are cheap andflexible and can easily handle the pressures involved in carbonation. PET bottles for still beverages can’thandle the pressure; I’ve had them blow up. There isn’t any real danger when one of those bottles blowswhile you’re carbonating, but it sure is embarrassing: imagine a small chef’s office with a 360-degree line ofcarbonated iced coffee sprayed across the wall at chest level. Even the carbonation bottles aren’tindestructible, however. Don’t stick chunks of dry ice in them; they will blow up. Ditto with liquid nitrogen.Don’t put boiling hot liquids in them either, or they’ll deform. Over long periods of time, PET bottles can pickup aromas and colors from the sodas they hold, so stay away from root-beer bottles and orange-soda bottles.

Carbonator caps are supposed to fit on any standard soda bottle up to 2 liters. Unfortunately, the sodaindustry introduced a new cap style several years ago. The new caps are shorter. Shorter caps are goodbecause they save plastic, but bad because carbonator caps don’t fit their bottles as well. You can use thecarbonator caps with new-style bottles, but get the old style if you can.

Unlike glass, which is a perfect gas barrier, PET soda bottles slowly leak gas. The majority of the leakage isstraight through the walls of the bottle; they are semipermeable to gases. This is the reason you shouldn’tstock up on soda in plastic bottles and leave them in your pantry for months. The lifetime of a PET bottle ofsoda is measured in weeks before it starts tasting flat. The smaller the bottle, the more surface area the bottlehas per unit volume, so the faster it goes flat. This is why bars always buy tiny glass bottles of soda—plasticbottles that size would go flat really fast. If you want to store a home-carbonated product for a long time,make sure to fluff the bottle with CO2 every week or so to maintain carbonation.

A newer version of soda bottle is made of layers of PET and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). PVA is a much bettergas barrier than PET and degrades into harmless products when the bottles are recycled, so these bottles arestill recyclable and they maintain carbonation much better than plain PET bottles. Unfortunately, the bottlesare just labeled with the PET recycling code, so you can’t know whether you have one.

From an environmental and health perspective, it might interest you to know that in 2011, only 29 percent ofall PET bottles were actually recycled (according to EPA data). Frown. But according to the NationalAssociation for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR), the rate of recycling is increasing. NAPCOR alsovehemently asserts that it is safe to reuse, freeze, and store products in PET, that nothing is ever leached intoyour beverage from PET, that PET contains no evil bisphenol A, and that even though the word phthalate isin the name of the plastic, the phthalates in PET aren’t the ones we should be worried about. Of course,whether you choose to believe data provided by a trade group whose sole mission is to support the use ofPET containers is up to you. From my perspective, I have drunk out of PET my whole life. I currently usePET, and serve drinks made in it to my family. That doesn’t mean I can state with apodictic certainty thatthere is nothing wrong with PET, but I will continue to use it till I hear credible rumblings of safety concerns.

CARBONATING A GIN AND JUICE IN A SODASTREAM: 1) Make sure your liquid is cold—this one isalmost crystallizing. 2) Charge with gas until the pressure release vents. 3) Carefully vent. Be careful—youmust be able to instantly re-tighten and seal the bottle. Do not let foam hit the top of the bottle. 4) Chargewith gas again until the pressure release vents. 5) Carefully vent. 6) Charge with gas again until thepressure release vents. 7) Wait for bubbles to subside. 8) Notice there is no foaming when I unscrew thebottle this last time. 9) The drink.

Just as with other all carbonation techniques, you should vent theSodastream to atmospheric pressure and recarbonate several times. Again,

you must be careful when releasing pressure. Your cocktail will foam. Makesure you can stop the releasing procedure quickly. Practice releasing thepressure and sealing it again several times while carbonating pure water toget the hang of it. The foam can shoot into the relief valve with surprisingrapidity. Do not let the foam get up and into the relief valve. Never put anypulp into this system—you will create messy, messy problems. Let the drinksettle down a bit after your last carbonation cycle before you do your finalventing. Make sure your product is supercold, almost frozen cold, to keepfoaming down and increase bubble quality.

Sodastream has released many different models. These instructionsshould work with most of them. Don’t get the glass one for carbonatingcocktails—it operates a bit differently and has to be hacked. It also makesme nervous.

The advantages of the Sodastream system are its small footprint, ease ofuse, and ubiquity. But you’ll spend a lot more money on CO2 than you willwith a proper tank. Carbonating wine and cocktails burns through CO2 muchfaster than carbonating water.

Never allow a Sodastream to foam into the area above the top of the bottle—you could clog the safety valve.When unscrewing the bottle only unscrew a tiny bit at a time.

WATER FOR CARBONATIONGood seltzer starts with good water. If your water doesn’t taste good, your seltzer will taste even worse. Ifyour municipality has bad water, filter it or use jugs of spring water. My favorite seltzer base? New York Citytap water, which is soft and has no off flavors for the bubbles to magnify. Many people like water with a lotof dissolved minerals. The minerals add taste and mediate the way your tongue perceives CO2, usually by

making things taste less carbonated than they really are. While I enjoy mineralized waters such as Apollinaris,Gerolsteiner, and Vichy on occasion, for maximum refreshment give me seltzer made from soft water anyday.

Even if your water tastes fine, make sure that it contains no chlorine. Chlorine tastes poisonous in seltzer. Ifyour water contains chlorine and your pipes are lead-free, you can use heat to drive off the chlorine. Startwith hot water that you allow to cool, or heat cold water on the stove and then cool it down.

TECHNIQUE THREE: ISI WHIPPERUsing whipped-cream makers and cartridges of CO2 to carbonate is myleast-favorite common technique, and I resort to it only when there is noalternative. Whipped-cream makers are not the same as seltzer-watermakers, which also use cartridges. Strangely, the whipped-cream makermakes better bubbles than the seltzer version, which I never, ever use.

Cream whippers use 7.5-gram cartridges of gas: CO2 for soda, N2O forwhipped cream. Compared to any other form of buying CO2, these cartridgesare superexpensive—up to a dollar apiece. You’ll need at least two of themevery time you carbonate. Even worse, you cannot control the pressureinside; your only choice is whether or not to add another 8-gram cartridge.

If you must carbonate using a cream whipper, keep it in the freezer for awhile before you carbonate, because the vessel has enough steel in it tosignificantly warm your drink. I also recommend throwing an ice cube ortwo into the whipper along with your chilled beverage. Scale your recipe tomake enough mix to fill your whipper approximately one-third full. Don’tfill the whipper more than halfway. Try to keep your fill levels the same allthe time: the pressure in the bottle—and therefore the level of carbonationyou get—is dependent on the fill line. Before you screw the top on, makesure the valve is clean—it easily gets filled with schmutz if you use thewhipper for infusions—and that its main gasket is in place. If either of thosetwo things is messed up, the whipper won’t pressurize and you will havewasted a cartridge.

Now put in your first CO2 cartridge and shake the whipper violently.After you shake it, hold it upright and use the dispensing handle to vent outthe headspace air and to blast the air off potential nucleation sites in thecocktail. If cocktail starts spraying out the top, release the handle and wait asecond before resuming your vent. After the cocktail is vented, add anotherCO2 cartridge and shake again. Let the whipper sit undisturbed for a whileso the drink settles before you slowly vent the gas. To serve, unscrew thetop and pour.

CARBONATING A RED CABBAGE JUSTINO COCKTAIL WITH AN ISI: 1) Chill your drink and add itto the pre-chilled iSi whipper. 2) Add a couple extra ice cubes. 3) Charge with CO2. 4) Shake. 5) Vent. 6)Charge with CO2 again. 7) Shake. Wait a minute for the bubbles to subside, and 8) slowly vent. 9) The drink.

PUTTING BUBBLES ON DRAFTAt home I have seltzer water on draft. Given the quantities I consume, any other system is cost-prohibitivefor me. I use a 5.3-liter Big Mac McCann commercial carbonator plumbed to my water supply. The Big Mac

is the type of unit a restaurant uses to make draft sodas at a bar. It works quite well. The reason most barshave crappy soda isn’t a result of their carbonators; it’s a result of poor filtration, poor chilling, and poordispensing—the same factors you need to control for good seltzer.

Filtration first: before the water gets to the carbonator I run it through a dedicated filter to remove chlorineand sediment. In your area you might need a more sophisticated filtration or water-treatment system to makegood seltzer. Just remember, if it tastes bad flat, it will taste worse with bubbles.

Next, chilling: I use a cold plate, as bars do for soda, but a little differently. A cold plate is a block ofaluminum filled with stainless steel tubing, kept in ice to chill drinks on the fly. You see, carbonators carbonatewater at room temperature at very high pressure, like 100 psi. As the water passes through the cold plate it ischilled and the liquid is slowed down, causing a pressure drop that prevents the soda from sprayingeverywhere when you dispense it. Cold-plate circuits aren’t long enough to chill the seltzer or to slow it downadequately, so I run the seltzer through two circuits in a series. Works perfectly, and everyone I’ve shownthis technique to swears by it. Make sure to buy a cold plate with more than one circuit in it.

Last, dispensing: most people ruin their soda with poor dispensing equipment. A CMBecker premix soda tap isthe only tap you should ever use to dispense highly carbonated beverages (they are scarce; see Sources,here). Never attempt to use beer taps, aka picnic taps, for this purpose unless you hate quality. The Beckerpremix valves have a special pressure-compensation system that gently eases carbonated beverages from theworld of high pressure to our world of low pressure with a minimum of bubble loss. They also have a tunableflow rate. At home I have a Becker valve that has been in continuous service, pumping out seltzer for overfourteen years with nary a problem. My seltzer is good.

As your mania for bubbles grows, you might decide to make some draft sodas or even draft cocktails. From aquality standpoint, these are fraught with peril. You have all the problems of seltzer, magnified. If you reallywant to draft cocktails, I can only recommend drinks that want minimal carbonation and can be served on thewarmer side (like at 36°F/2°C).

MY DRAFT SELTZER RIG: Regular tap water is filtered and runs to my McCann carbonator (bluelines). A pump on the carbonator forces the water under pressure into the stainless-steel carbonatortank. CO2 is fed into the stainless tank at 100–110 psi to supply gas and pressure (yellow lines).Room-temperature seltzer exits the tank and heads for a cold plate in my ice machine (green lines).The seltzer runs through the cold plate two times (one of my secrets) then exits and heads above thecabinet to my seltzer tap.

The only carbonation advantage of the whipper: it lets you experimentwith nitrous oxide, the standard gas for making whipped cream. Whippedcream is always made with nitrous so that the cream doesn’t tastecarbonated and spoiled. Nitrous doesn’t add much flavor to whipped creambecause it is expanded out, but what flavor it does have is sweet. Used as abubble source in drinks, it is noticeably sweet. For this reason, it workswell in coffee- and chocolate-flavored drinks. It adds body and livelinesswith no carbonation taste. Avoid milk in these drinks, as it foams way toomuch.

If you want to try mixed gas, carbonate normally using two CO2 cartridgesand then add a nitrous cartridge to finish. Done in supercold ice water, atwo-CO2 one-N2O carbonation job approximates my favorite bubbly water,which I make with my souped-up mixed-gas system (80 percent CO2, 20percent N2O at 45 psi in ice water).

My seltzer tap, a pre-mix soda valve made by CMBecker, fitted to an Ibis tower.

CARBONATION IN A NUTSHELLEverything that came before, distilled to a few sentences for easy reference.

Always remember the three C’s of carbonation:

• Clarity—the drinks you carbonate should be clear.• Coldness—the drinks should be cold, usually as close to freezing aspossible.• Composition—get rid of bubble nucleation sites. Try to avoid ingredients

that foam too much, try keep your alcohol levels on the low side most of thetime, and remove as much air as possible from your drink.

When you carbonate, remember these tips:

• Carbonate each drink several times and allow it to foam between eachcarbonation cycle. This is one of the key tricks to getting rid of nucleationsites and getting long-lasting bubbles.• Don’t overfill your carbonation vessels, or you will find it impossible tocontrol foam and to carbonate properly. Proper headspace will depend onyour application, but bottles that must be shaken should never be filled morethan three-quarters full, and Sodastream bottles should never be filled tomore than one-third of their normal capacity when carbonating foamy drinks(like cocktails).• Don’t underfill your carbonation vessels. For each system there is anoptimum recipe size. When you go too low, you risk inconsistent results.• Don’t use too much pressure. If your drink is foaming excessively andtastes flat in the glass, your carbonation pressure is too high—you are tryingto add more CO2 than your drink can hold without gushing. Try lowering thepressure. If that doesn’t work, go back and address the three C’s—clarity,coldness, and composition. See the recipe section below for specificpressure recommendations.• Up the surface area. Carbonation requires agitation to get CO2 into yourdrink, typically by shaking under pressure or by injecting bubbles. Anyeffective carbonation scheme has a mechanism for increasing surface areaand agitation. Pressure alone won’t work.

Three important things to remember about carbonation theory:

• Pressure—as the pressure goes up, so does the amount of CO2 you putinto a drink.• Temperature—as the temperature goes down, you increase the amount ofCO2 a liquid can hold.• Alcohol—the higher the alcohol content of your drink, the more CO2 youneed to add for the same feeling of carbonation in your mouth.

RECIPES: WHAT TO CARBONATEIn the following recipes I give you the usual bartender-style measurements—a fat ¾

ounce of lime juice and such—and also the much more precise milliliter measures.The standard bartender measures will work fine from drink to drink, and they conveythe meaning of recipes to within the accuracy of most folks’ jiggering skills. When youare batching multiple drinks at a time, you will be much better served doing as I do:using milliliter measurements and a graduated cylinder.

NONALCOHOLIC DRINKSRecipes for carbonated sodas are fairly straightforward. The mainingredient of soda is usually water, so use water that tastes good. Make sureit doesn’t smell of chlorine.

Most sodas contain between 9 and 12 grams of sugar per 100 millilitersof beverage, which is pretty sweet for something you might pound in largequantities. Unfortunately, in my experience, reducing the sugar quantitiesmuch lower than 8 grams per 100 milliliters doesn’t make a soda seemdrier, it just makes it seem underflavored and watery. I suspect the reasonfor this is the lack of alcohol. Alcoholic drinks have a built-in flavorstructure that exists without sugar, so sweetening an alcoholic drink doesn’trequire as much sugar. Water tastes like . . . water. It is possible to makehighly flavored nonalcoholic drinks that are low in sugar, be they bitter orsour, but people don’t perceive these as legitimate sodas; they perceivethem as flavored seltzers—not the same thing. People expect sodas to berelatively sweet and, most of the time, tart as well.

When making sodas, you have two chilling options: mix your ingredientsand put them in the fridge for several hours, or use ice. Ice is faster, andbecause it gets all the way down to 0°C (32°F), it makes sodas colder andeasier to carbonate. To use ice for soda you need a container marked for thefull volume of your finished drink. Get some ice water—not cold water, butwater with pieces of ice in it. Add all of your nonwater ingredients to themarked container. Take some ice from the ice water, add it to youringredients, and stir till the ingredients are chilled to 0°C (32°F). If you stillhave a bunch of ice left in the container, pull some out and just leave a chipor two. If all the ice melts, add a bit more.

When you are satisfied that your flavor base is chilled, give your icewater a stir (to get the whole shebang down to freezing again) and fill yourmixing container with water to the fill line. Leave a small piece or two ofice in the mix—it will melt as you carbonate and help keep your drink coldduring the process. Don’t worry about the extra nucleation sites the iceproduces. One or two pieces won’t cause the same problems as scads oftiny ice crystals.

Simple Lime SodaFor this recipe you may use either clarified lime juice or lime acid. Lime acid is amixture of malic and citric acids that imitates regular lime juice (4 grams citric acidand 2 grams malic acid in 94 grams water). Use this recipe as the basis of all yoursour-type soda recipes. The ounce of simple syrup this recipe contains supplies 18.5grams of sugar, making the whole 6-ounce (180-ml) recipe a hair over 10 percentsugar (w/v).MAKES 6 OUNCES (180 ML) AT 10.5 G/100 ML SUGAR, 0.75% ACID

INGREDIENTS1 ounce (30 ml) simple syrup3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) clarified lime juice or lime acid base41⁄4 ounces (127.5 ml) filtered water2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients and chill in the refrigerator for several hours beforecarbonating at 35–40 psi, or follow the ice-water procedure above.

Strawbunkle SodaI made this recipe a couple of years ago when my son Dax was reading The BigFriendly Giant, by Roald Dahl. The BFG mispronounces many things, includingstrawberries. Dax pointed out that I share this intentional mispronunciation trait—hence the soda name. Clarified strawberry juice is about 8% sugar and 1.5% acid, abit too acidic to make directly into a soda. Even if the acid level was right, straightstrawberry soda would also be too dang juicy and overpowering. I add simple syrupto balance the acid, and water to mellow the flavor.MAKES 6 OUNCES (180 ML) AT 10.1 G/100 ML SUGAR, 0.94% ACID

INGREDIENTS1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup (this contains 9.2 grams of sugar)33⁄4 ounces (112.5 ml) clarified strawberry juice13⁄4 ounces (52.5 ml) filtered water2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

PROCEDURE

Combine all the ingredients and chill in the refrigerator for several hours beforecarbonating at 35–40 psi, or follow the ice-water procedure above.

WINES AND SAKETraditional carbonated wines, like champagne, aren’t force-carbonated.They are naturally carbonated by yeast’s action on the sugar that is addedafter the wine’s primary fermentation and before the bottles are sealed. Theflavor and body resulting from this extended second fermentation arecompletely different from the results you get with force carbonation. Notbetter, just different. When you choose a wine to carbonate, ask yourself ifthe wine will be good cold—not slightly chilled like a nice glass ofBeaujolais in the summer, but cold. Put a bottle in the fridge and leave itthere. Taste it. If a cold wine is out of balance or overly tannic when flat,carbonation won’t help it.

Unlike cocktails, sparkling wines don’t taste best when chilled belowrefrigerator temperature. I overchill the wines I plan to carbonate bysubmerging the bottles in ice water, since the cold facilitates carbonationand guarantees consistency. But I let them come up a couple of degreesbefore serving.

The pressures you’ll use to carbonate depend on the alcohol content of thewine. At 0°C (32°F) a low-alcohol white—in the range of 10 to 12 percent—should be carbonated with 30 to 35 psi of CO2. Any more and you’ll lose

the fruit. Wines in the 14–15 percent alcohol range should be carbonated to40 psi at 0°C. Sake, which could be up to 18 percent alcohol, should becarbonated to 42–45 psi at 0°C.

When I first began carbonating wines, I thought all my experiments weredelicious. I was a carbonation genius! But then I conducted a rigorous seriesof tastings, sampling the original still wine against my carbonated version.You know what? Most of the time, even if the carbonated wine was good,the still version was better. Only occasionally was the carbonated version arevelation compared to the original.

The moral? Don’t become enamored of your capabilities. As doctors ofour ingredients, our first mission is to do them no harm—the HippocraticOath of cooking.

FLUFFING EXISTING CARBONATED COCKTAILSIf you have no patience for making your own mixers but you do have the ability tocarbonate, it is simple to up your bubbly cocktail game by simply making a basic drink—whiskey soda or vodka tonic, for instance—and then force-carbonating the wholekit and caboodle. If you keep your straight booze in the freezer (usually –20°C/–4°F)and your mixer in the fridge, you can mix a typical cocktail and carbonate right awaywith very little fuss. I recommend a ratio of 2 ounces (60 ml) of freezer booze to 3.5ounces (105 ml) refrigerated mixer.

Fluffing a gin and tonic in a Sodastream.

MIXING YOUR OWNI shoot for between 14 and 16 percent alcohol in my carbonated drinks. I push somedrinks with stronger flavors to 17 or 18 percent alcohol. To get the correct alcoholrange, use my magic ratio: every 5½-ounce (165-ml) carbonated drink containsbetween 1¾ and 2 ounces (52.5 and 60 ml) of booze between 40 and 50 percentalcohol. I find that this ratio almost always works. It is almost always right. Tastedflat, these drinks are absurdly weak. They taste watery. Believe me, when youcarbonate them, you’ll like them better than stronger versions.

In fact, all the flavors in a carbonated beverage should taste a bit weak when thedrink is flat. Most acidic shaken drinks will have about 0.8 to 0.9 percent acidity—theequivalent of ¾ ounce (22.5 ml) of lime juice in a 5¼-ounce (160-ml) finished drink.Most acidic carbonated drinks are between 0.4 and 0.5 percent acidity—theequivalent of a short ½ ounce (12 ml) of clarified lime juice in a 5½-ounce (165-ml)finished drink. Shaken drinks will usually be between 6.5 and 9.25 percent sugar.Carbonated drinks are mostly between 5 and 7.7 percent sugar. Notice that the acid istypically scaled back more than the sugar is. Also notice that these sugar levels arewell below those found in most sodas. I’m not sure why we like our cocktails lesssweet than our sodas, but we do.

Learn to taste flat drinks and know how they will taste carbonated. As a furtherexperiment, make a stronger carbonated drink, then add a splash of seltzer and see if itdoesn’t taste better.

In the following recipes, all the ingredients are clarified. Some recipes, like Ginand Juice, can’t be made without clarification. Others, like Gin and Tonic, will let youadd some basic lime juice at the end. For the purposes of the recipes, however, Iassume you’ll be clarifying.

At the bar we batch and carbonate all our drinks prior to service. If we didn’tprebatch, we’d never get the drinks out on time. Because we premake our carbonateddrinks, freshness becomes an issue. We never add clarified lime or lemon juice to ourdrinks before we carbonate them. We make fresh clarified lemon and lime juice daily.Day-old is garbage. If we added lemon or lime before we carbonated, we’d have tothrow away whatever was left in the bottles at the end of the night, which would makeme sad, or serve a day-two drink that I wasn’t proud of, which would make mesupersad. Instead we add a small amount of clarified lemon or lime juice to the glassright before we pour the drink and serve it to our guest. The ¼ to ½ ounce (7.5 to 15ml) of noncarbonated stuff we add to the drink doesn’t hurt the bubbles. If you arecarbonating and serving right away, don’t worry about adding highly perishableingredients like lime juice. If you want your drink to last a couple of days, add thefragile stuff later.

I serve carbonated drinks in champagne flutes chilled with liquid nitrogen. Servethis way and you’ll never go back. Looks great, tastes great. Take the time to pour yourdrink gently down the side of the flute. You’ve worked so hard to make the drink—don’t ruin it at the last minute with a careless pour.

WHICH BOOZE TO CHOOSE?For my palate, gin is the easiest spirit to carbonate. Gin drinks just taste goodcarbonated. Vodka can be carbonated to good effect when you have fruits or spicesthat you want to highlight without an assertive spirit competing for attention. Tequilacan be difficult. Strongly flavored tequilas tend to get even stronger when they arecarbonated, and they can overpower. Very light tequilas carbonate just fine. Strongtequilas can be cut with vodka to mellow their tone a bit. White rums can becarbonated, but I like carbonated rum drinks much less than I thought I would,considering how much I love rum; somehow, most carbonated rum drinks taste cheapand fake to me. I’ve had—and made—decent carbonated rum drinks, but I find themvery challenging.

Oaked spirits intensify their oakiness when they are carbonated. If you like awhiskey soda, you’ll probably like carbonated whiskey drinks too. I find they are

difficult to balance properly. Many liqueurs are champions in carbonated cocktails.Campari and its cousin Aperol scream to be carbonated. Just remember when usingliqueurs not to make the batch too sweet, or the drink will be cloying.

SOME UNITS TO REMEMBER WHEN YOU MAKE AND ADJUST RECIPES• One standard carbonated drink is 5½ ounces (165 ml). Scale the recipesas you wish.• Every ½ ounce (15 ml) of 1:1 simple syrup will add 9.2 grams of sugarand will increase the sugar in a standard size (5.5-oz, 165-ml) carbonateddrink by 5.6 percent.• Every ½ ounce (15 ml) of clarified lime juice will add 0.9 grams of acid(0.6 grams citric and 0.3 grams malic) and will increase the acidity in astandard size (5.5-oz, 165-ml) carbonated drink by 0.55 percent.

X, Y, OR Z AND SODAAnytime you have to make an “-and-soda” drink, your choices are fairly simple:decide on the ratio of booze to water. With stronger-flavored liquors, like whiskey, Ilike to use a short 2 ounces (57 ml) of spirit to a fat 3½ ounces (108 ml) of water. Usegood, filtered water and don’t pour the drink over the rocks—it doesn’t need any morewater. For fairly neutral spirits like vodka, I up the alcohol percentage slightly, maybeup to a full 2 ounces. I don’t go over that percentage unless someone specificallyrequests it. My only secret with these -and-soda drinks: add a drop or two of salinesolution (or a couple grains of salt).

CARBONATING A CLASSICThe first trick to carbonating a classic is to choose the right cocktail. Some, like theManhattan, are an abomination when carbonated. I carbonate Manhattans as objectlessons in what can go wrong when you carbonate. They are wretched and unbalanced.Luckily, many classics, like the margarita and the Negroni, carbonate quite well.Here’s how to modify those two recipes to make them work with bubbles. See how Imodified them and then modify your own.

Carbonated MargaritaClassic margaritas are a mix of agave-based spirits, orange liqueur, lime juice, andsugar. In this recipe I omit the orange liqueur; I think it muddies the taste. Instead Itwist an orange rind over the surface of the drink before I serve it. The ratios in thisrecipe work for many sour drinks, so use it as a master recipe.MAKES ONE 51⁄2 OUNCES (165 ML) DRINK AT 14.2% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.1 G/100 ML

SUGAR, 0.44% ACID

INGREDIENTSShort 2 ounces (58.5 ml) light-bodied, clean tequila like Espolón Blanco(40% alcohol by volume)Fat 21⁄2 ounces (76 ml) filtered waterShort 1⁄2 ounce (12 ml) clarified lime juiceShort 3⁄4 ounce (18.75 ml) simple syrup2–5 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt1 orange twist

PROCEDURECombine the first five ingredients and chill till almost frozen. Carbonate at 42 psi.Pour into a chilled flute. Express the orange twist over the top of the drink anddiscard. If you want the drink to keep for several days, carbonate without the limejuice and add the lime juice before serving.

Carbonated NegroniThe classic Negroni is

1 ounce (30 ml) gin (47% alcohol by volume)1 ounce (30 ml) Campari (24% alcohol by volume, 24% sugar)1 ounce (30 ml) vermouth (16.5% alcohol by volume, 16% sugar, 0.6%acid)

The volume of the recipe as written is 3 ounces (90 ml). If you add 2½ ounces (75 ml)water to make the drink volume proper for a single carbonated drink, the result wouldhave an alcohol by volume of 16% with 7.3% sugar. Both those numbers are prettygood. The acid level is a bit low at 0.18%, but the Negroni is not an acidic drink. Ifyou need a refresher on how I got these numbers, check the cocktail math section of thebook, here.

If you want to make it more refreshing, you can sub out ¼ ounce (7.5 ml) of thewater with clarified lime juice or an acid of your choice. Finish it off with a twist ofgrapefruit-peel oil.MAKES ONE 51⁄2-OUNCE (165-ML) DRINK AT 16% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.3 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.38% ACID

INGREDIENTS1 ounce (30 ml) gin1 ounce (30 ml) Campari1 ounce (30 ml) sweet vermouth1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) clarified lime juice21⁄4 ounces (67.5 ml) filtered water1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt1 grapefruit twist

PROCEDURECombine everything but the twist and chill till almost frozen. Carbonate at 42 psi. Pourinto a chilled flute. Twist the grapefruit peel over the drink and discard the peel. If youwant the drink to keep for several days, carbonate without the lime juice and add thelime juice before serving.

Champari SpritzCampari and soda is a classic low-alcohol summer favorite, good for times when thecarbonated Negroni is a bit too much but you still want that Campari hit. Oncecarbonated with a squeeze of lime, Campari is the epitome of bitter, bracing, andrefreshing. Instead of adding a twist of lime, I add champagne acid; hence the name.Champagne acid is the same mix of acids that is naturally present in champagnediluted to lime-juice strength (30 grams tartaric acid and 30 grams lactic acid in 940grams water); see the Acids section, here, for details. Champagne acid shifts the drinkinto a winy, champagney area that I really like. If you make this recipe more than acouple hours in advance, don’t add the champagne acid until you are ready to serve.Although champagne acid doesn’t spoil like lime juice, over time it makes theCampari taste progressively and unpleasantly bitter. I don’t know why. This cocktailwill last a week in the fridge. Notice I said fridge, not freezer. This drink is low inalcohol (7.2% alcohol by volume) and freezes easily.MAKES ONE 51⁄2-OUNCE (165-ML) DRINK AT 7.2% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.2 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.44% ACID

INGREDIENTSFat 11⁄2 ounces (48 ml) Campari (24% alcohol by volume, 24% sugar)3⁄8 ounce (11 ml) champagne acid (6% acid)31⁄8 ounces (94 ml) filtered water

1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients and chill in ice water to 0°C (32°F). Carbonate at 42 psi.Serve in a chilled flute.

Gin and TonicI explain the derivation of my gin and tonic recipe in depth elsewhere, but here is myrecipe. This version is extremely dry and austere—the way I like it.MAKES ONE 51⁄2-OUNCES (165-ML) DRINK AT 15.4% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 4.9 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.41% ACID

INGREDIENTSFull 13⁄4 ounces (53.5 ml) Tanqueray gin (47% alcohol by volume)Short 1⁄2 ounce (12.5 ml) Quinine Simple Syrup (61.5% sugar; see here)Short 3 ounces (87 ml) filtered water

1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt3⁄8 ounce (11.25 ml) clarified lime juice (6% acid)

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients (except the lime juice, if desired) and chill between –5°and –10° Celsius (14°–23°F). Carbonate at 42 psi. If you carbonate with the limejuice, serve the drink that day. If you carbonate without the juice, add it as the drink ispoured into a chilled flute; your G&T will keep indefinitely.

ChartruthThis drink is for those of you who love Green Chartreuse as much as I do. If you aren’tyet a fan, Green Chartreuse is an herbal smack in the face produced by Carthusianmonks in France who’ve taken a vow of silence. This liquor is so badass that theynamed a color after it. This is the simplest expression possible: Chartreuse and waterwith a hint of lime. I call it the Chartruth. This drink is higher in both alcohol (18%alcohol by volume) and sugar (8.3%) than most good carbonated drinks. Because ofthe intensity of flavor, I like to pour a single drink into two small glasses and serve itto two people as a refreshing minidrink.MAKES ONE 51⁄2-OUNCE (165-ML) DRINK AT 18.0% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 8.3 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.51% ACID

INGREDIENTSFat 13⁄4 ounces (54 ml) Green Chartreuse (55% alcohol by volume, 25%sugar)Short 31⁄4 ounces (97 ml) filtered water1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of saltShort 1⁄2 ounce (14 ml) clarified lime juice (6% acid)

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients except the clarified lime juice and chill to between –5°and –10°C (14°–23°F). Carbonate at 42 psi. Add the clarified lime juice as the drinkis poured into a chilled flute. If you are going to serve the drink immediately, you maycarbonate with the lime juice.

Adding the clarified lime juice to a Chartruth.

Gin and JuiceIf I’m remembered for anything, I hope it is my Gin and Juice. Essentially just gin andclarified grapefruit juice, it is simple and satisfying.

Grapefruit juice is characteristically bitter, mainly owing to the compoundnaringin. The bitterness of the naringin in grapefruit is counteracted by sugar (10.4%)and high acidity (2.40%). To my taste, grapefruit juice balances perfectly in stilldrinks. In carbonated drinks, especially with gin, the bitterness becomes too much.Luckily, clarification removes some of grapefruit’s bitterness. How much bitternessremains in the juice depends on the clarification technique you use. Most peoplemaking this recipe will clarify their juice using the seaweed gel agar (see the sectionon clarification, here). Agar strips a lot of bitterness from the juice and is a fantastic

clarification technique for this drink.

At the bar I use a centrifuge to clarify grapefruit juice, because the yield oncentrifugal clarification is so much higher than with agar—I waste almost no juice.Unfortunately, centrifugal clarification strips much less of grapefruit’s bitterness.Simple syrup and a tiny amount of champagne acid are added to counteract thebitterness. I give you recipes for both agar-clarified and centrifuge-clarified Gin andJuice.

Grapefruit juice is too juicy-tasting to use without adding some water to thedrink. How much water you add depends on how juicy you want your drink.

The recipes below balance with the grapefruits I get most of the time at the bar(California-grown Ruby Reds). Remember that grapefruits taste different dependingon variety, orchard locale, and season, so you might have to tweak these recipes a bitdepending on the fruit you have.

Last, I have used many different gins to make Gin and Juice, but nothing makesme as happy as Tanqueray. It just has an affinity for grapefruit juice.

The ingredients for Gin and Juice.

GIN AND JUICE: AGAR-CLARIFIED

MAKES ONE 51⁄2-OUNCE (165-ML) DRINK AT 16.9% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 5 G/100 MLSUGAR 1.16% ACID

INGREDIENTSScant 2 ounces (59 ml) Tanqueray gin (47% alcohol by volume)

Short 23⁄4 ounces (80 ml) agar-clarified grapefruit juiceFat 3⁄4 ounce (26 ml) filtered water (If a slightly sweeter drink is desired,replace a bar spoon (4 ml) of the water with simple syrup; that will makethe drink 6.3% sugar, 1.10% acid)1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

GIN AND JUICE: CENTRIFUGALLY CLARIFIED

MAKES ONE 51⁄2-OUNCE (165-ML) DRINK AT 15.8% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.2 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.91% ACID

INGREDIENTSFat 13⁄4 ounces (55 ml) Tanqueray gin (47% alcohol by volume)Fat 13⁄4 ounces (55 ml) centrifuge-clarified grapefruit juiceShort 11⁄2 ounces (42 ml) filtered waterFat 1⁄4 ounce (10 ml) simple syrupScant bar spoon (3 ml) champagne acid (30 grams lactic acid and 30 gramstartaric acid in 940 grams water)1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients and chill between –5° and –10°C (14°–23°F). Carbonateat 42 psi. Serve in a chilled flute.

TECHNO-VARIANTMy other favorite clarified grapefruit juice recipe is Habanero-n-Juice. The recipe is the same, except insteadof gin you use redistilled habanero vodka. Blend 200 grams of red habanero peppers with a liter of 40-proofvodka and distill it till you recover 650 ml of product in a rotary evaporator with a condenser temperature of –20°C and a bath temperature of 50°C. The habaneros must be red for the drink to work. Habaneros are oneof the hottest peppers known, but also have fantastic flavor and aroma. Capsaicin, the compound responsiblefor the spiciness of the pepper, is too heavy to distill, so none of the heat is present in the distillate. Roto-habanero is one of my long-standing and favorite distillations. It goes amazingly well with grapefruit. If youmake it, be aware that the distillate has a short shelf life. After a month or so, the “red” flavor of the distillatewill fade and it will begin to taste “green,” more like a jalapeño.

Habanero gin being vacuum distilled at low temperature to produce non-spicy habanero gin.

Flying the rotovap.

PART 4

Little JOURNEYS

In this last section I’ll riff on three different subjects and see where they take me: apples, coffee, and the gin andtonic. I hope these journeys will give you insight into how I approach cocktail development. I usually start with aconcept, a flavor, a fruit, an idea, or a memory. I develop a goal and try to get there. This approach to cocktails isthe hardest thing to teach. So often, people think of cocktail development as the mere rearranging of spirits andjuices.

I’ll assume some familiarity with the techniques and concepts presented earlier in the book, so explanations herewill be more laconic.

ApplesI love apples. I grew up in New York State, and apples are one of the things we doreally, really well. Apples have not received their due as a cocktail ingredient. This ispartly because apple juice isn’t very concentrated, meaning that you must use a lot in acocktail recipe to get the right flavor—and then it no longer works well in standardshaken, stirred, and built drinks. But I think the main reason is a lack of education.

Many of us grew up thinking there were two flavors of apple, red and green. Ofcourse, we were wrong. There are thousands of apple varieties with startlinglydifferent flavors, including notes of quince, orange, rose, anise, and wine. Some havepreposterously high levels of acid and sugar. Some are delicate and aromatic. Someare austere. Each one of the thousands of varieties you can find today was named andpropagated by someone, at some time, for some reason or another. Every apple was atone time loved by somebody. The trick is figuring out why—and then whether it isuseful in a cocktail.

Some apples were loved for reasons that are irrelevant to us today. The Flowerof Kent was saved for posterity because it was the apple that fell on Newton’s head; ittastes bad. Some apples were loved because they performed well in a particular area.(Can you guess where Arkansas Black apples were first grown?) Other apples wereloved because of their timing: early-season apples allowed cooks to make fresh applepies in late June and early July, after their winter store of apples was exhausted. Theneed for early-season apples has been obviated by modern storing and shippingtechnology, so these apples now must stand on their own merits to survive. Sometimesthey do, sometimes they don’t.

My serious study of apple flavors began in 2007, when the eminent food writerand thinker Harold McGee and I visited the United States’ apple collection in Geneva,New York. Yes, the United States maintains a collection of apple trees—thousands ofthem, two per variety, as in Noah’s ark—just in case one of those trees holds somegenetic material that will someday be useful to agribusiness. We tasted a couplehundred varieties over a two-day period, and what a treasure. Strangely, the keepersof the collection hadn’t expected us to taste the apples. Apparently their usual visitingtemperate-fruit pomologists just want to look at trees. When the keepers figured outour real purpose, they gave us a bemused look and allowed us free run. From thehundreds of apples we tasted, I was able to bring home and juice about twenty. Thejuices of those apples were the basis of my first serious apple cocktails, and one ofthem, Ashmead’s Kernel, became my all-time favorite cocktail apple.

Since then I’ve been buying apples from local growers at my well-stocked NewYork City greenmarket and from other growers from all over the United States, as well

as sampling many dozens of varieties as they grow in England. I have learned that myexperience of an apple variety might not match yours. Apples are extremely dependenton where they are grown, when they are harvested, and the vagaries of the year’sweather. Apples that grow well in mild climates might not ripen well in colder areas.Varieties meant for cold climates might taste insipid grown too warm. To make thebest apple cocktails, you have to make the best juice. To make the best juice, you justhave to taste a lot of apples, remember who grew them, and go back to those samepurveyors year after year.

APPLE JUICE, THE COMMODITYCommercial apple juice is a commodity product, and I advise that you leave it out ofyour cocktails. Oceans of apple juice are made every year from fruit that wasn’t quitegood enough to sell for eating. It’s clarified, pasteurized, then often concentrated,shipped, reconstituted, blended with other reconstituted juice from who knows where,and sold. While this sort of product is fine for juice boxes, it’s not good enough topartner with booze. Supermarket American sweet cider (sweet, as opposed to hard:the United States is the only country that refers to a nonalcoholic apple juice as cider)is more robust and versatile than regular juice, but I still can’t recommend it for yourcocktail work.

You can find some delicious single-variety and carefully blended apple juicesand sweet ciders at specialty stores and farmers’ markets, but they are typicallymarred by pasteurization. Everyone with whom I have blind-tasted has chosenunpasteurized apple juice and sweet cider over pasteurized. Some cold pasteurizationmethods use ultraviolet light that doesn’t damage flavor nearly as much as heat, butyou’re unlikely to find products made this way in your market.

Last, almost without exception, store-bought apple juices and ciders areoveroxidized and therefore brown. Fresh apple juice may be green, yellow, red,orange, or pink—it’s never brown. The juice turns brown very quickly when exposedto oxygen, the same way a cut apple does. This oxidation destroys nuanced varietalflavors.

MAKING APPLE JUICE THE RIGHT WAYFor your cocktail work you’ll need to make your own apple juice.

Wash your apples before you juice them, and look them over for signs of worms,rot, mold, and excessive bruising. The washing is important, because we will not beusing heat. If the apple isn’t clean enough to eat, it isn’t clean enough to drink. Cutaway any moldy or off-looking parts. A moldy apple can spoil a lot of juice and, evenworse, can contain patulin, a possible carcinogen.

JUICING APPLES: I use a Champion juicer and make sure the juice pours into a container that alreadycontains ascorbic acid (vitamin C) so the juice never has a chance to oxidize (LEFT). After I juice, I skimthe majority of foam off the top, strain the juice through a fine strainer (the pulp is delicious) and, if I amgoing to clarify, add Pectinex ultra SP-L (RIGHT).

Never, ever peel an apple before you juice it. Most of the varietal-specificaromas, flavors, tannins, and apple pigments are concentrated in the flesh very close tothe peel. Cut your apples up, but leave the skin on and throw them into a masticatingjuicer. These juicers, like my Champion, do a good job of extracting the flavor andcolor of the flesh near the skin. They have tiny teeth that pulp and shred the apple tobits and then smash those bits against a screen to get at the juice. Once upon a time Iremoved the cores and seeds prior to juicing, since the cores have little flavor and theseeds contain cyanide. Not anymore. I did a side-by-side taste test of apples juicedwith and without cores and seeds, and I couldn’t tell the difference. The Championdoesn’t seem to extract any bitter flavor from the seeds; it leaves them mostly intact orsimply broken in half, not pulped (hence you are not consuming them—no cyaniderisk), and the lack of flavor in the core is insignificant since the core doesn’t yieldmuch juice anyway.

A SPECTRUM OF APPLE JUICE COLORS (LEFT TO RIGHT): Unnamed crabapple; Stayman Winesap;Honeycrisp; Suncrisp; Granny Smith. The crabapple juice is redder than the Stayman Winesap juice, eventhough the Winesap is a darker apple, because the crabapple is smaller, with a larger surface-area-to-volume ratio. There is more skin to leach color into the juice.

THOSE SAME APPLE JUICES TREATED WITH PEXTINEX ULTRA SP-L: The solids are floating on topbecause of trapped air. Gently rapping the glasses on the table and stirring would allow that stuff to settle tothe bottom. Notice the juices contain different amounts of solids and clarify differently. Granny Smith on theright is almost completely clear, while the crabapple on the left hasn’t settled at all.

You will prevent oxidation by using vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Remember fromthe Ingredients section that vitamin C and citric acid are not the same (see here).Citric acid is the primary flavor acid in lemons. It does not directly prevent browning.

Ascorbic acid doesn’t change the tartness of lemons much, but is responsible fornearly all of their antibrowning power. Either toss the cut apples in ascorbic acidpowder before you juice them, or put some ascorbic acid in the container you arejuicing into. Make sure to stir the ascorbic acid into the juice after you juice your firstapple or two. I use about 2.5 grams (1 teaspoon) of ascorbic acid per liter of juice,much more than is used commercially.

The crabapple juice from the previous photo after it has been spun in a centrifuge—a gorgeous pink. Someapple juices lose their richness when clarified. This crabapple, on the other hand, wasn’t so great to eat andits juice wasn’t much better, but once clarified it was spectacular.

You will now have real, fresh apple juice that tastes just like the apples it camefrom. If you have never tasted this kind of apple juice before, you will be angry thatyou have lived this long without it. The juice, however, is not cocktail-perfect: it iscloudy. You now must decide whether to clarify.

Apple juice flavor is greatly affected by clarification. Think of the differencebetween commercial apple juice and sweet cider. It isn’t just that the cider has moreviscosity and body because of the suspended particles; those particles bring their ownflavor, and that flavor is often good. So why clarify? If you plan to carbonate, youhave no choice. If you plan to make a stirred drink, you should clarify—who wants asoupy-looking stirred drink? Choose an apple that retains its awesomeness once

clarified. If you’re working toward a shaken drink, forget clarifying. Just strain thejuice thoroughly to avoid unsightly pulp particles against the side of your glass andyou’re good to go.

Before we get into some special cocktail-worthy apples, let’s look at some usesfor supermarket varieties, both clarified and not.

Clarified: Granny Smith SodaI’ll go nonalcoholic with this one. Granny Smiths, Australia’s most famous apple, arethe go-to apple for cooks because they are tart, brisk, consistent, and easy to get. Theirjuice clarifies very well even without a centrifuge: just juice them, add some PectinexUltra SP-L, and let the juice sit overnight before you pour the clear stuff off the top(see the Clarification section, here; truth be told, if you let Granny juice sit longenough, you can get by without the enzymes). Grannies have a sugar-to-acid ratio thatis perfect for soda (roughly 13 grams per 100 ml sugar and 0.93% acidity).Unfortunately, they just aren’t that interesting. But while monotonic flavor is a flaw ina cocktail, where the juice must stand up to and blend with liquor, it can work well ina soda.MAKES 6 OUNCES (180 ML) AT 10.8 G/100 ML SUGAR, 0.77% ACID

INGREDIENTS5 ounces (150 ml) clarified Granny Smith juice1 ounce (30 ml) filtered water2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

PROCEDURECombine the ingredients, chill, and carbonate with your method of choice.

Unclarified: Honeycrisp Rum ShakeHoneycrisps are one of the better new commercially available apple varieties. Theyare a wee bit low in acid, so this recipe requires extra acidity, in the form of eitherlime juice or straight malic acid. Apple juice is too diluted to work in a drink shakenwith ice, so for this recipe you will do a juice shake (see the Alternative Chillingsection, here) using frozen juice.MAKES ONE 5.4-OUNCE (162-ML) DRINK AT 14.8% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.8 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.81% ACID

INGREDIENTS2 ounces (60 ml) clean-tasting white rum (40% alcohol by volume)Short 1⁄2 ounce (12 ml) lime juice,

or 0.7 grams malic acid dissolved in 10 ml water and 2 drops salinesolution or a pinch of salt3 ounces (90 ml) unclarified Honeycrisp apple juice frozen into three 1-ounce (30-ml) cubes

PROCEDURECombine the rum and the lime juice or malic acid and salt, then shake with the applejuice ice cubes in a cocktail shaker till the ice has completely melted to a slush (youcan hear this happening). Serve in a chilled coupe.

Now let’s take a trip beyond the supermarket.

LEARNING ABOUT APPLESWe are living in a great time for apples, and interesting varieties are withineveryone’s reach. If you don’t live near good growers, you can buy specialty applesdirectly from growers online. If you live in apple country, farmers’ markets have morevarieties on display every year as more and more people express interest in fruitvariety. You’ve got to get out and taste. You’ll find a list of critically important applereferences in the bibliography, but remember that they are no substitute for your mouth.

CHOOSING AND TASTING APPLESWhether you are choosing apples at the greenmarket or off the trees, keep a fewpointers in mind. Bring a knife: it is much easier to get a good sense of how an applereally tastes by slicing off a piece of flesh and skin instead of sinking your teeth into awhole fruit, especially if you are tasting dozens of apples and you want to avoid soregums. Remember that when you taste an apple for cocktails, the texture does notmatter! Erase your perception of texture and focus only on how the juice tastes. Thistask is difficult at first. Practice.

HOW APPLE TEXTURE MATTERS FOR COCKTAILSYou wouldn’t think an apple’s texture matters for cocktails—after all, we are just going to juice them—but itdoes, indirectly. America’s texture preferences have all but removed whole swaths of potentially goodcocktail apples from contention. Let me explain.

We Americans are prejudiced. We accept only crunchy apples. This is not a good thing. Why must an applebe crunchy? Other textures, like crumbly, can be good too. We have lost the ability to distinguish betweencrumbly and mealy. A mealy apple is a formerly crunchy apple that has been stored too long and is losingquality. It is bad. A crumbly apple, however, is entirely different: one whose texture was never crunchy whenripe. Accept the beauty of difference.

How does this affect the quality of your juice? American growers planting heirloom varieties know you willbuy only crunchy apples, so they often pick their fruit viciously underripe. Mature fruits would be

unacceptably soft and wouldn’t sell. These underripe apples are sad. They have very little of theircharacteristic varietal flavors. They are flat. They haven’t developed their sugar yet, so they also taste likeacid bombs and are full of unconverted starch. Picking underripe yields a crunchy apple that is flavorless,acidic, and starchy. Early-season apples are the biggest losers in this category, because as a group they arelight in flavor to begin with, have a very short season, and turn mushy faster than any other apples do. It isalmost impossible to get a grower to pick them for you when they are ripe.

As cocktail folks, we don’t even care what the texture is—we are just making juice—but we still pay theprice. Do your part and tell your local growers that if they pick apples when they are ripe, you’ll buy them!Lots of them!

When you cut into an apple, feel how the knife moves through the flesh. You cansense the starchiness of an underripe apple even before you taste it: it feels like youare slicing a hard potato. You can see starch in the juice on the cut face of anunderripe apple before you taste it. Avoid these apples. When you look at a bin ofapples or a tree full of apples, look for two apples with different coloration. Even inapples that stay green forever, the color will change as the fruit ripens, usually gettingdarker or developing a blush. Even on a particular tree, apples will be in varyingstages of ripeness depending on where they are. And beyond simple ripeness, theflavor of an apple can change depending on how much sun it gets compared to otherson the tree and how far down the branch it grows. Tasting the two most differentlycolored apples of a variety will show you the range of flavors a particular apple islikely to have. On an individual fruit, look for one side that is more colored thananother or that has a blush on it. First taste the side farthest from the blush. Hopefullyit is good. Now taste the side with the blush—it will be richer, sweeter, more sun-kissed. The juice from that apple will be in between the two tastes.

The blush side of an apple tastes different.

After you perform these tests, take only the apples that fit your requirements. In anorchard this is easy, and in a market it isn’t too difficult. Just buy two different applesfrom each variety that interests you, taste them on the spot, and then buy however manyyou need for cocktails. Remember that apple juice freezes well: if you find an applethat you love, buy a bunch, then process and freeze.

SUGAR AND ACIDApples that do well in cocktails tend to be high in both sugar and acid. Low-sugarapples are rarely good because they are mostly underripe, so they will also have littleflavor, not just low sugar. High-acid juice is good, because it allows you to make acocktail without any other added acid. Low-acid apples can be greatly improved byadding a little acidity, in the form of straight malic acid, lemon or lime juice, or evenacidic alcoholic ingredients like vermouth. But I prefer to use apples that don’t requiretoo much adjusting, allowing you to present the pure flavors of the apple withoutdistractions.

Commercially, especially in hard-cider production, people will quote applevarieties based on the sugar-to-acid ratio. This enables you to judge the balance of ajuice based on one number. You can then look at the sugar level (usually quoted inBrix) to determine the overall taste strength of the juice. Most people won’t haverefractometers to measure their juice, and fewer still can adequately measure theacidity of their apple juice (pH meters won’t work for this), but many benchmarks forparticular varieties can be found online and are useful guidelines for choosing whichapples to test if you can’t taste them before you buy.

For cocktails, I like apple juice with a sugar-to-acid ratio between about 13 and15; 13 is tart, 15 pleasantly acidic. For reference, Granny Smiths are about a 14. Galaapples, which are low in acid and fairly sweet, clock in around 21. As for sugarlevels, apple juice should be above 11 Brix to be useful, and is better around 14 or 15—as sweet as or sweeter than soda.

Let’s look at some cocktail experimentation with two high-sugar, high-acidapples: Ashmead’s Kernel and the Wickson crabapple.

OVERRIPE AND OVER-THE-HILL APPLESYou want to avoid apples that have languished. In a market, you can tell which apples are past their primebecause they no longer feel hard in the hand; maybe they have even shriveled a bit. In an orchard, feel theapples. If they feel greasy, this is a sign that they are overripe; the naturally occurring epicuticular waxcoating on many apples gets greasier as they ripen. (In the grocery store this test is not so useful: the growermay have removed the natural coating during washing and put a different one on top.) If you suspect an apple

is overripe, cut it open. Many overripe apples develop water core, a wet-looking inside that appears as thoughit has been frozen and thawed. Usually, but not always, overripe apples will be softer than they should be.

Overripe or overstored apples are no good for eating, but mildly overripe apples can make for an interestingcocktail ingredient. As they overripen, apples lose acidity, so overripe apples will always need more acidcorrection than properly ripe ones will. They can also develop very intriguing perfumey floral aromas as theethylene gas in the apples kicks into overdrive and produces volatile esters in the fruit. In small amounts theseesters can be fabulous. In overabundance they make the apples smell of solvent. If you want to capture theseflavors, beware: they are very fugitive.

ASHMEAD’S KERNELAshmead’s Kernel is a russeted, yellowish-skinned English apple dating back to theearly eighteenth century. I get mine from a grower in New Hampshire. When theseapples are good, they are really, really good. The juice just tastes rich. Many russetedapples share a pearlike note, but with more acid; Ashmead’s has a bit of that but ismore full-bodied than usual. The Brix can approach 18, which is very high, and it hasa high acid to match. I don’t have any hard data on the sugar-to-acid ratio, but I’dguess it’s around 14.

Ashmead’s Kernel desperately wants to be paired with whiskey and carbonated,but for one sticking point: the oak in whiskey swamps the flavor of the apple. Thisproblem eventually got me started on washing whiskeys (see here). But long before Itried to soften with washing, I solved the problem through simple redistillation in arotary evaporator. This redistilled whiskey was clear and colorless but still veryplainly whiskey. I simply mixed it with the clarified Ashmead’s, softened the drinkwith a bit of water and a pinch of salt, chilled it, and carbonated it. The KentuckyKernel, as I called it, is exactly the kind of drink I love to make: just two ingredients,manipulated and combined to create a flavor that people hadn’t experienced before.

I first made that drink in 2007, with the very first batch of Ashmead’s Kernel thatI swiped from the U.S. apple collection in Geneva. Now that I have a bar, I can’tdistill anymore (pesky legal issues), so I can’t make my Kentucky Kernel the way Iused to. The answer, as you know by now, is washing the whiskey. Here is the recipe:

Kentucky KernelMAKES ONE 5.25-OUNCE (157.5-ML) CARBONATED DRINK AT 15% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME,8.6 G/100 ML SUGAR, APPROXIMATELY 0.6% ACID (ASSUMING YOUR BATCH OF APPLESHAS AN ACID-TO-SUGAR RATIO OF 14; YOU’LL HAVE TO TASTE YOUR APPLES TO SEE IFYOU NEED TO ADJUST MY RECIPE)

INGREDIENTS13⁄4 ounces (52.5 ml) chitosan/gellan-washed Makers Mark bourbon (45%

alcohol by volume)2 1⁄2 ounces (75 ml) clarified Ashmead’s Kernel juice1 ounce (30 ml) filtered water2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

PROCEDURECombine the ingredients, chill, and carbonate. Serve in a chilled flute.

That recipe is equally delicious made with de-oaked Cognac instead of bourbon. If theoak is still too strong for you, you can try egg washing (see the Booze Washingsection, here).

BOTTLED CARAMEL APPLETINI TWO WAYS, AND THEAUTO-JUSTINOThe Wickson crabapple is not really a crabapple at all. It has an illustrious anddefinitely uncrabby parentage, and is called a crab simply because it is very small.From what I can gather, it is a cross between the Newtown Pippin, the first appleAmerica exported to Europe in colonial times (discovered in New York), and theEsopus Spitzenburg, another fabulous and famous colonial-era American apple (alsofrom New York State), with which I have made many good cocktails. Discovered inCalifornia in 1944, the Wickson packs a wallop in a tiny package. It can reach over 20Brix, although the ones I get are closer to 15. The acid level can reach 1.25 percent.These are great levels for cocktail work, and it has a great flavor as well, rich andround. I decided to make appletinis.

The appletini, as you are no doubt aware, has a well-deserved bad repattributable to the fake sour-green apple schnapps of which it is typically constructed.The Wickson has the acidity and sugar to pull off a beautifully refined appletini, oneyou can be proud to order. You could make this drink with a mixture of Plymouth ginand vodka, but I stick with the pure vodka here, and finish with Dolin Blanc sweetwhite vermouth. I also mess with the Wickson a little: I decided to produce a caramel-apple flavor for a nice fall tribute, so I add a little bit of caramel syrup.

If you stir this drink, it will get too diluted. Instead, make it as a bottled cocktail(see the Alternative Chilling section, here). If you fill the bottles with the mix, purgethe headspace of oxygen using liquid nitrogen and cap them; they should last a longtime. I store them at exactly 22°F (–5.5°C)—service temperature—in my Randell FXfreezer. If all you have is a home freezer, let the bottles freeze! Just don’t overfillthem, or they’ll explode when they freeze. When it comes time to serve, run the bottlesunder water till they just thaw out. This isn’t the procedure I give for making bottledcocktails in the Alternative Chilling section; it is a slightly different technique basedon the principles outlined in that chapter. I present it this way to show that you needn’tfollow any technique dogmatically. I don’t. You can take advantage of any of thetechniques in this book using whatever equipment you have at hand, once you grasp theprinciples.

This drink could also be bottled and chilled for service in a salt-ice bath.

Bottled Caramel AppletiniMy Wicksons were 15 Brix. If yours are higher (many reported measurements are over20), you will have to adjust your recipe or it will become toothachingly sweet. You

don’t need a refractometer to figure this out: if the drink is too sweet, adjust! Thisdrink is not supposed to be a sugar bomb. Caramel syrup isn’t as sweet at the sugar itcontains, because some breaks down during caramelization.MAKES ONE 51⁄5-OUNCE (155-ML) DRINK AT 16.5% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 7.2 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.45% ACID

INGREDIENTS2 ounces (60 ml) vodka (40% alcohol by volume)1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) Dolin Blanc vermouth (16.5% alcohol by volume)1 ounce (30 ml) filtered water13⁄4 ounces (52.5 ml) clarified Wickson crabapple juice1 bar spoon (4 ml) 70-Brix caramel syrup (see Note)NOTE: For 70-Brix caramel, add a small amount of water—around 1ounce (30 ml)—to the bottom of a pan. On top of the water pour 400 gramsof granulated sugar and heat till the mixture forms a rich, dark caramel,almost but not quite burned. Immediately add 400 ml of water. It will boilviolently. Stir the mixture with a spoon to dissolve everything. After thesyrup cools, measure the Brix. It should be somewhere between 66 and 70.If it is higher, add water. If lower, boil some water off.Dash of orange bitters (preferably the recipe here)2 drops saline solution or a dash of salt

PROCEDUREMix everything together, bottle, chill, and serve.

I promised you an appletini two ways, and for the second way I developed a newtechnique. At the beginning of this section I mentioned that clarifying an apple reallyremoves some of the flavor from the juice. I wondered if I could get some of theunclarified pulpy flavor in a clear drink. I decided to add alcohol to the cloudy juicein hopes that the liquor would pull some of the flavor out of the pulp that wouldotherwise be lost when I clarified. I also decided to use very high-proof liquor,because I wanted the resulting liquid to be shelf-stable, similar to the Justinos Idescribe in the Clarification section. I added 400 ml of pure ethanol (the lab-gradestuff I have mentioned) to 600 ml of cloudy juice, with no added clarification enzymes.Something fantastic happened. The ethanol did in fact pull some good flavor out of thepulp. But this surprised me: the high-proof booze instantly caused the pectin in theapple juice to aggregate and auto-clarify. No waiting, no centrifuge, just crystal clear—and delicious! I call this the Auto-Justino. The Auto-Justino is shelf-stable and a bitover 40% alcohol by volume. Just add Dolin Blanc and bitters and stir it into anappletini. You can also use the Wickson Auto-Justino in shaken drinks. Although mostof the pectin in the Auto-Justino aggregates and is strained out, there is enoughresidual pectin in the booze to make a nice layer of foam on top of a shaken drink.

This Auto-Justino was made from Ashmead’s Kernel and aged for several months.

The real problem with this technique is that good-quality, 96% or higher alcoholby volume liquor is hard to get, and the bad stuff smells like a hospital and tastes likepoison even after it has been diluted. To see if the technique would work on lower-proof stuff, I tested a fifty-fifty mix of Bacardi 151-proof aged rum (75.5 % alcohol byvolume). It worked fantastically well, and the resulting liquor was still above arespectable 37% alcohol by volume. I was surprised at how good the Bacardi tastedwith the apple. I’m pretty sure the 151 is a stunt liquor built to fuel frat-party nonsense—it comes with flammability warnings and a metal antiflame pouring screen—but it issurprisingly well crafted.

The 151 at 75.5% alcohol by volume is near the lower limit of alcohol contentfor success with this technique; 57% alcohol by volume was a failure. If you can findeven small amounts of tolerable 96% alcohol-by-volume booze, you can use it tofortify high-quality flavorful liquors up above 70% alcohol by volume for thistechnique. One such mix: 25% gin (47.5% alcohol by volume or above), 25 percent ofthe 96 percent alcohol by volume, and 50 percent juice.

When you make an Auto-Justino, you should use a spoon to gently mix the liquidaround, coaxing the pectin globs closer to each other and allowing them to swab upstray cloudy bits in the liquid, polishing the liquor.

The Auto-Justino has lots of advantages: it is fast, it requires no equipment(except the juicer to make the apple juice), and it extracts good flavor from the pulp.This technique relies on the fact that apple juice contains pectin but is still rather thin.I tried it on thicker purees like strawberry without success.

FUTURE EXPLORATIONPlenty of mid- and late-season apples make great cocktails—dozens at least that anyreader of this book in a temperate climate zone can get his or her hands on. Much moredifficult is making a great cocktail with very early-season apples, like YellowTransparent and Lodi. They are tough customers. They have very little flavor. Theyare called salt apples by some old-timers, who like to sprinkle them with salt and eatthem less as a dessert-style snack and more as a savory, salty, refreshing-style snack. Ihave not yet successfully made a great cocktail with these apples. I think I haven’t yetfully listened to what they are trying to tell me. I haven’t figured out what they want tobe yet, but I get closer every year. My guess is light, salty, and fleeting, maybe usingagave for its here-and-gone fructose hit, and gin. Maybe I’ll crack the code next year.I’ve had early-season apples that would be great in cocktails, but I haven’t been ableto source them regularly. I once got a shipment of Carolina Red June and ChenangoStrawberry apples from Virginia. Blended together, they were the best early-seasonjuice I’ve ever made, but I’ve never had enough to really test.

I have yet to explore the possibility of using highly tannic cider apples as acomponent of a cocktail—a ridiculous oversight you can be sure I will rectify nextseason. When you taste one of these apples in an orchard, you spit it out straightaway.In fact they are called spitters. My brain never got over the prejudice of not likingthem in the orchard so I could see how they may be useful in a cocktail, or how theymight taste after I remove some of the tannin with milk/egg/chitosan washing.

Last, I would love to travel to Kazakhstan, the home of the apple, to the TienShien fruit forest. By all accounts, this forest, stretching from Kazakhstan to westernChina, is an amazing place. Most fruits in their wild state are not nearly as good astheir bred and domesticated counterparts, and many people think this is true of theapple—but no. Phil Forsline, the curator of the U.S. apple collection when McGee andI visited in 2007, had made a pet project of gathering wild apples from the Tien Shienforest. McGee and I tasted some of those wild apples and they were quite good,worthy of being named. Perhaps I could wander in that forest till I found a wild appletree whose fruit had the rich taste, high acid, and high sugar necessary for good

cocktail work. Then I’d have a variety I could literally call my own. That would befun cocktailing.

CoffeeI have spent most of my life hating coffee and referring to it as an execrable, thin,bitter liquid. When I was growing up, my mom’s favorite nighttime tipple was Kahluaand milk; even in that highly sugared state I couldn’t stand it. I satisfied my college andgrad-school caffeine needs with tea and Diet Coke.

In my late twenties, I decided things were going to change. I was going to likecoffee, and I was going to like it strong. I forced myself to down shots of espresso.After a couple of weeks I learned to like it—then love it. I soon decided I needed proespresso at home, but I couldn’t afford a good machine. I started trolling restaurantauctions. I struck gold at a place that, after a DEA raid, had had the door padlockedfor weeks with rotting food inside. Since I was one of the few prospective buyerswilling to stand the stench during the auction, I left with a sweet eighties-vintage two-group Rancilio for just a hundred bucks. Thus began my many years’ journey into theworld of espresso.

Pulling an espresso shot.

That was in the late 1990s. The state of espresso art has come a long, long waysince then, and many smart people have committed many years of study to that little

brown shot. This is a book on cocktails, not coffee, so I’ll avoid the nitty-gritty here,but I do want to walk you through my approach to a challenge I set for myself: to makea coffee cocktail that captures what I like about espresso in cocktail form. Thesecocktails don’t necessarily contain espresso; they just embody what is great about it.

A quick note on other coffee forms: I have not been able to get excited about dripcoffee, iced coffee, or coffee with milk. I don’t like coffee-flavored things, evencoffee ice cream. I’m not telling you this because I’m proud of it—I just want you toknow my proclivities so you can better judge the rest of this section.

ESPRESSO CHARACTERISTICS: WHAT WE ARE AIMINGFORFor the purposes of this discussion, I define espresso as 1½ ounces (45 ml) of coffeebrewed from 15 grams of compacted freshly ground coffee in 22 seconds using 92°C(198°F) water at a pressure of 135 psi (9.3 bars). I use more coffee grounds and lesswater than a traditional northern Italian would, and fewer coffee grounds and morewater than a modern American barista would. Feel free to disagree with my ratio.

Espresso should be strong and pleasantly bitter, but not acrid. It shouldn’t requiresugar. So I want my coffee cocktail to taste strongly of coffee, and to avoid acridityand sweetness.

The high pressure under which espresso is brewed causes a foam, called crema,to form on top. The bubbles that form this foam are actually present throughout theshot. The high pressure also causes coffee oils to emulsify into the liquid (espresso,unlike drip coffee, is an emulsion). Foaming and emulsification give espresso itscharacteristic opacity, body, and texture. The texture of espresso dies fairly quickly,just as the texture of a shaken cocktail does. So to recreate the body of espresso in acocktail, we definitely won’t be stirring—stirring is for limpid drinks, and we areaiming for exactly the opposite. We will need to use shaking and carbonating to get thetexture I’m after.

ESPRESSO DRINKS THAT ACTUALLY INCLUDE ESPRESSOEspresso is an ideal cocktail ingredient, because it delivers its substantial flavor insmall, cocktail-sized doses. Drip coffee cannot compete with espresso in cocktails; itcarries too much water with it. If you try to make drip coffee strong enough to stand upto dilution, it becomes acrid. You might think that cold-brew coffee concentrate,which has become popular recently, is a good substitute: like espresso, it is bitterwithout being acrid. But the taste just isn’t the same.

Using espresso instead of drip coffee takes care of our first coffee-cocktailcriteria: strong but not acrid. To help us tackle the tougher problem, texture, let’s take

a quick look at iced coffee.

ICED ESPRESSOIced coffee is one of the few things I make a lot of, even though I loathe it. My wifeloves iced coffee and cannot understand my contempt. In an attempt to make an icedcoffee we both would like, I focused on improving its texture. Simple shaking was theanswer. Espresso shaken with ice and a little sugar—a caffè shakerato in Italy—textures very nicely but must be consumed very quickly. Add milk and your textureproblem is gone completely. Milk is a foam-making machine. A shaken iced espressowith milk is a pretty good drink, even for haters. If you don’t try any other recipe inthis book but you like an iced coffee, please try this one. Your life will be better for it!

Shakerato with MilkMAKES ONE 62⁄3-OUNCE (197-ML) DRINK 0% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 4.7 G/100 ML SUGAR,0.34% ACID

INGREDIENTS11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) freshly made espresso cooled down to at least 60°C(140°F)3 ounces (90 ml) whole milk1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup2 drops saline solution or a pinch of saltCopious ice

PROCEDURECombine the ingredients and shake like the devil. Either strain and serve in a chilledglass or serve it in a tall glass with some ice and a long straw. If you prefer a no-milkversion, omit the milk, shake a bit longer, and serve in a chilled coupe glass.

ALCOHOLIC ICED ESPRESSOAdding liquor to a shakerato throws off the dilution and body. To get the right texturewith liquor, I suggest substituting cream for milk and letting the espresso chill a bitmore.

Boozy ShakeratoMAKES ONE 74⁄5-OUNCE (234-ML) DRINK AT 10.2% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 3.9 G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.29% ACID

INGREDIENTS11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) freshly made espresso cooled down to 50°C (122°F)2 ounces (60 ml) dark rum (40% alcohol by volume; nothing too funky)11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) heavy cream (you can use light cream or even half andhalf if you prefer, but the drink won’t be as good)

1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup2 drops saline solution or a pinch of saltCopious ice

PROCEDURECombine the ingredients and shake. Strain into a chilled double old-fashioned glass(the volume is too much for a coupe).

Boozy Shakerato with cream, shaken with regular ice.

Boozy Shakerato with milk—no cream.

Boozy Shakerato 2Another option to keep the texture without adding cream: freeze milk into ice cubesand shake with them. This is a variant of the juice-shake method in the AlternativeChilling section, here.MAKES ONE 71⁄2-OUNCE (225-ML) DRINK AT 10.7% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 4.1% G/100 MLSUGAR, 0.3% ACID

INGREDIENTS11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) freshly made espresso cooled down to 50°C (122°F)2 ounces (60 ml) dark rum (40% alcohol by volume; nothing too funky)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt31⁄2 ounces (105 ml) whole milk, frozen into ice cubes

PROCEDURECombine the liquid ingredients and shake with the frozen milk cubes until all the icehas broken into slush. You should be able to hear the slushiness in your cocktailshaker. Strain into a chilled double old-fashioned glass (the volume is too much for acoupe).

Boozy Shakerato 2 made with milk ice cubes.

TEXTURE WITHOUT SHAKING: BUBBLESEspresso starts out as a drink full of bubbles—carbon dioxide bubbles, in fact. Whencoffee is roasted, carbon dioxide generates inside the beans. When you forcepressurized water through the coffee grounds, the CO2 dissolves into the brew water.When the hot water reaches atmospheric pressure, the dissolved CO2 bubbles out likeit does in a foaming bottle of warm soda, causing espresso to foam. As coffee beansage and go stale, their CO2 depletes, making them taste bad and taking away theirtexturizing powers.

Since the bubbles in espresso are just CO2, why not just carbonate a chilledespresso cocktail to get the texture I want? Because carbonated coffee tastes weird,that’s why. (You can buy a coffee soda called Manhattan Special that appeals to somepeople—I’m not among them.) The amount of CO2 in an espresso is small because thebrew water is so hot; remember, the amount of CO2 soluble in a liquid is inverselyproportional to its temperature. You’d never describe espresso as tasting carbonated,right? To get bubbles without the prickly taste of CO2, use nitrous oxide (N2O), whichcreates bubbles much like CO2 but tastes sweet instead of prickly.

I have a big nitrous oxide tank, so I can make drinks with N2O the same way Iwould with CO2. Most of you, except for the dentists, will not be able to buy it in largequantities. Luckily, N2O is easy to purchase in cartridge form; refer back to the RapidInfusion section, here. So let’s make this drink in an iSi whipper.

Nitrous EspressoBe aware that espresso foams like a demon when you add bubbles to it, so though youcan make two drinks at a time, be careful not to overfill your whipper. Also note thatnitrous is sweet, so as this drink sits around in the glass and the nitrous bubbles off, itwill taste progressively less sweet. If you swish a nitrous drink around in your mouthbefore you swallow, it will give you a burst of sweetness as more nitrous is releasedfrom the liquid. Although for consistency I give the recipe for a single drink, thisrecipe is best doubled.Makes one 5-ounce (165-ml) drink at 12.7% alcohol by volume, 5.6% g/100 ml sugar, 0.41% acid

INGREDIENTS11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) espresso13⁄4 ounces (52.5 ml) vodka (40% alcohol by volume)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup13⁄7 ounces (52.5 ml) filtered water2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

EQUIPMENTTwo 7.5-gram N2O chargers

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients in the iSi whipper and chill in the freezer till it is justabout to freeze (this will also chill your whipper). Close the whipper and charge withan N2O charger. Shake and then vent while holding a towel over the nozzle to deaeratethe drink (try not to spray coffee everywhere; believe me, it is messy). Now chargewith a second charger and shake for at least 12 seconds. Put the whipper down and letit remain undisturbed for around 90 seconds. Slowly—I mean slowly—vent thewhipper. You are trying to preserve the bubbles here. Serve in a chilled flute glass.

ESPRESSO DRINKS THAT DON’T ACTUALLY CONTAINESPRESSOEarly in my cocktail experimentation I became interested in distillation as a methodfor preserving aroma while removing bitterness. I attempted to make a coffee liquorwith no bitterness and therefore no need for sugar. I had no success at all. None of thedistillations I made, whether I used grounds or brewed coffee, tasted remotely likegood, strong coffee. Turns out coffee flavor is not recognizable without all the bitter,heavy stuff that doesn’t distill.

When distillation failed I turned to infusions, but nothing ever tasted quiteright . . . until I developed rapid nitrous infusion. Without rapid infusion, my coffeeconcoctions were too weak or had a lingering, unpleasant, bitter aftertaste. Rapidinfusion allowed me to make a coffee infusion that acted like espresso, with a pure,strong coffee taste, the pleasant bitterness of coffee, and no acridity. This liquorrequired only a modicum of sugar when used in a cocktail. The only problem with mycoffee infusions now: they still required milk to achieve the right texture. You canguess how I felt about that. My second breakthrough came with the milk-washingtechnique (revisit the Milk Washing section, here). With milk washing you add milk to

liquor, allow or force the milk to curdle, and then strain out the solids. The resultingliquors still contain whey proteins and make nice creamy, foamy drinks, but they don’ttaste milky.

COFFEE ZACAPA COCKTAIL

Finally! A cold coffee drink I really enjoyed. The recipe below is a variation ofthe one in the Rapid Infusion section, in which I use djer, a West African spice, tomake Café Touba (here). The liquor base is aged rum. First the infusion:

INGREDIENTS FOR COFFEE ZACAPA750 ml Ron Zacapa 23 Solera rum, divided into a 500 ml portion and a 250ml portion100 ml filtered water100 grams whole fresh coffee beans roasted on the dark side185 ml whole milkCitric acid or lemon juice, if needed

PROCEDURE

Grind the coffee in a spice grinder until it is slightly finer than drip grind. Combine500 ml rum and the coffee in a half-liter iSi whipper, charge with one charger, shake,and then add a second charger. Shake for another 30 seconds. Total infusion timeshould be 1 minute 15 seconds. Vent. Unlike most infusions, don’t wait for thebubbling to stop, or the liquor will be overinfused. Instead rest for just 1 minute, thenpour through a fine-mesh filter into a coffee filter. If you pour the mixture directly intoa coffee filter it will probably clog very quickly. The mixture should filter within 2minutes. If not, your grind was too fine. Combine and stir the drained grounds in thecoffee filter, then add the water evenly over the grounds and let it drip through (this iscalled sparging). That water will replace some of the rum that was trapped in thegrounds during the infusion. The liquid that comes out of the grounds from spargingshould be about 50 percent water and 50 percent rum.

At this point you should have lost roughly 100 ml of liquid to the grounds. About halfof that lost liquid is water and the other half rum, so your final product has a slightlylower alcohol by volume than you started with.

Taste the infusion. If it is strong (which is good), add the additional 250 ml of rum tothe liquor. If the infusion can’t bear to be toned down without losing the flavor of thecoffee, your grind size was too coarse; don’t add any more rum, and reduce the amountof milk you use for milk washing to 122 ml.

While stirring, add the coffee rum to the milk and not the other way around, lest themilk instantly curdle. Stop stirring and allow the mixture to curdle, which it should dowithin about 30 seconds. If it doesn’t curdle, add a little 15% citric acid solution orlemon juice bit by bit until the mixture curdles, and don’t stir when it’s curdling. Oncethe milk curdles, gently use a spoon to move the curds around without breaking themup. This step will help capture more of the casein from the milk and produce a clearerproduct. Allow the mix to stand overnight in the fridge in a round container; the curdswill settle to the bottom and you can pour the clear liquor off the top. Strain the curdsthrough a coffee filter to get the last of the liquor yield. Alternatively, spin the liquorin a centrifuge at 4000 g’s for 10 minutes right after it curdles. That’s what I do.APPROXIMATE FINAL ALCOHOL BY VOLUME: 35%

MAKES ONE 39⁄10-OUNCE (117-ML) DRINK AT 15.8% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, AND 7.9% G/100ML SUGAR, 0.38% ACID

INGREDIENTS FOR COFFEE ZACAPA COCKTAIL2 ounces (60 ml) Coffee Zacapa1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Ice

PROCEDUREShake all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker and strain into a chilled coupe glass. Thedrink should be creamy and frothy.

FUTURE STEPSI’d like to revisit coffee distillation; I have not tried since my first ill-fated attempts. Itmight be possible to create a supercoffee liquor by first distilling liquor with coffeeand then infusing that same liquor with coffee grounds—a double coffee effect.

I’d like to experiment with altering the espresso-brewing procedure specificallyfor cocktails. The amount of foam in an espresso is dependent, as we discussed, on theamount of CO2 in the roasted beans. The darker the roast of the coffee, the more CO2 ispresent, hence more foam. The foam in espresso has greater stability, however, if youuse medium-roasted coffee, so I’d like to use a medium-roasted coffee and supplementthe CO2 during the brewing process. If I’m lucky, this will let me brew a 1½-ounceshot of espresso directly into an ounce shot of liquor to produce hot espresso shotswith good texture. At home, my espresso machine is plumbed to my filtered watersupply, as is my carbonator. It would be fairly simple to hook the output of mycarbonator to the input of my espresso machine. If I brew with carbonated water, Ishould get more foam—I hope. My espresso machine uses a heat exchanger to heat thebrewing water, which means that the water used for brewing goes from roomtemperature to hot very quickly and is under the full 135 psi (9.3 bars) of pressure theentire time it is being heated and delivered. It just might work.

I’d also like to experiment with brewing hot cocktails directly, using boozemixed with water in an espresso machine. It might be good or it might be terrible. Iknow I’ll learn a lot trying.

The Gin and TonicI am ending this book where my own cocktail journey began: with the gin and tonic.It’s the first drink I remember my dad making. He would fix one for himself and atonic with lime for me. The first cocktail I analyzed closely, the G&T inspired me todevelop many of my cocktail techniques. I still think about it daily. The gin and tonicrepays deep thought.

The gin and tonic is seemingly so simple: gin, tonic water, and a squeeze of lime.The promise of the G&T is so great: crisp and refreshing, on the dry side, a bit tart,slightly bitter, aromatic, crystal clear with lots of bubbles. But G&Ts almost alwaysdisappoint. Sometimes there’s too much gin, and therefore too little carbonation.Sometimes there’s too little gin, and therefore too few aromatics and too muchsweetness. All too often, warm gin and tepid tonic water are poured over copiousquantities of watery ice, producing a drink tasting mainly of water. How couldsomething so simple in concept be so difficult in practice? The answer is simple. It isimpossible to make a good gin and tonic using traditional techniques. Yes, impossible.There is no ratio of gin to tonic with the right balance of flavors and enoughcarbonation. You may postulate that I am an outlier, that I was ruined by years ofdrinking straight tonic water with my dad. But I think if you search your heart, you willagree that you too are unsatisfied with the bubbles in a traditional gin and tonic, evenif—or especially if—the G&T is one of your favorite drinks.

THE BEST G&T YOU CAN MUSTER IF YOU CAN’TMUSTER MUCHThe best gin and tonic you can make with traditional techniques uses gin thatyou’ve stored in your freezer and tonic water poured from a fresh bottle thatyou’ve kept in ice water (if you really must, use tonic water that has merely beenrefrigerated, but keep it in the coldest part of your fridge—the part that accidentlyfreezes the lettuce from time to time). By “fresh bottle” I don’t just meanunopened, I mean recently purchased. Plastic bottles lose their carbonation at analarming rate, and smaller bottles lose carbonation faster than larger ones.Twenty-ounce bottles can lose an appreciable amount of carbonation in a monthat room temperature. If you buy tonic water in glass bottles or cans—both ofwhich are gas-impermeable—storage time isn’t important.

Before you make the drink, you must decide what glassware to serve in. Formy G&Ts I typically choose a champagne flute (and no ice), but I am alwaysusing force carbonation. In this nonforce scenario, the champagne glass feelswrong, and it’s best just to serve the drink on the rocks in a standard highball

glass. You will add 1¾ ounces (52.5 ml) of gin and 3¼ ounces (97.5 ml) of tonicwater to the glass to make a 5-ounce (150-ml) drink. You can measure the ginwith a jigger, but don’t measure the tonic water that way—jiggering will causetoo much carbonation loss. Instead, before you make your drink measure 5 ounces(150-ml) of water into the glass and note where the water level, or wash line, is.Try free-pouring water into the glass to that same level by eye and then measureafterward how accurate you were. After a couple attempts you will likely begetting to within a quarter-ounce or better every time. You can also try to learnwhere the wash line for 1¾ ounces is in your glass so you can free-pour the gin,but I’d just use a jigger instead. Now you are ready to make the drink.

HARD WORK FOR THE LAZY DRINKER—THE NO-TECH GIN AND TONIC: 1) Pre-freeze yourglass and gin and pour the gin into the glass. 2) Tilt the glass and pour in fresh, ice-cold tonic water.3) Now squeeze in some fresh lime and 4) gently place in un-tempered freezer ice. 5) Place the lime ontop and drink it, lazy head.

Several minutes before drink time, make sure your glass is in the freezergetting cold. Cut your lime into quarters, of which you will need one per drink.At drink time, pull the glass and gin out of the freezer and pour 1¾ ounces (52.5ml) of gin into the glass before you pour in the tonic. Next, tilt your glass to a45-degree angle and slowly pour the ice-cold tonic water into the glass. As you

pour, slowly raise the glass to vertical and stop pouring when you have reachedthe 5-ounce (150-ml) wash line you memorized earlier. The order of operationsis important. You want the two ingredients to mix thoroughly without any bubble-liberating activities like stirring. Pouring the tonic into the gin mixes better thanpouring the gin into the tonic. Tonic water is denser than gin (even gin at freezertemperature), so the tonic will sink through the gin. Also, there is more tonic inthe recipe than gin, and when mixing two liquids you’ll mix more efficiently ifyou add the larger volume of liquid to the smaller one. As a bonus, adding gin tothe glass first will melt any errant ice crystals on the inside of the glass—crystalsthat would become bubble nucleation sites and cause copious foaming if the tonichit them.

Next, squeeze as much juice as you’d like into the drink from a quarter of alime. Adding lime before tonic would help the drink mix better, but lime juicecontains bubble nucleation sites and bubble-stabilizing surfactants that wouldwreak havoc with the tonic’s carbonation if it were added earlier.

Then add freezer-cold ice—not tempered ice. Don’t drop the ice into thedrink like a Neanderthal. Gently slide it in using a bar spoon. It’s important thatyou add the ice last; if it goes into the glass before the liquids, it will promotefoaming as the tonic is poured and will present a barrier to mixing. Added at theend, the ice promotes mixing. If you use ice directly out of your freezer, it willadd very little additional dilution. The ice cubes will crack from thermal shock,but that’s okay in this application. Drop the lime quarter into the top of the glassif you like that sort of thing. If you dropped the lime directly into the liquid, itwould create constant bubble nucleation, but in our on-the-rocks scenario thelime will sit just above the drink, leaving bubbles unharmed and lending a nicearoma as the glass is raised to the lips.

If you have a Sodastream or some other force-carbonation apparatus, youcan take this recipe— 1¾ ounces (52.5 ml) of gin and 3¼ ounces (97.5 ml) oftonic water—and put the mix in your freezer till crystals just begin to form, thenforce-carbonate per the instructions in the Carbonation section, here (for aSodastream you’ll have to double the recipe). In this case I’d serve the drink in achilled champagne flute without ice—you’ve earned it. Squeeze the lime into thedrink after you have poured it and do not put the lime into the flute unless youwant to spoil your carbonation work. Clarify the lime juice first for an evenbetter result.

THE WAY OF THE G&TIn 2005, I realized that I would never be satisfied with a traditional G&T. It was aprofound moment. I learned that carbonation is an ingredient, and I knew I had tomaster carbonation so that I could separate the volume of tonic from the quantity of

bubbles in the cocktail. I felt compelled to break down the entire gin and tonic andrebuild it from first principles. I won’t go into detail on my carbonation travails here,because I discuss them ad nauseum in the Carbonation section. Let’s talk about theother ingredients—the tonic water and the gin.

TONIC 101Tonic water is a mixture of water, sweetener (usually high-fructose corn syrup in theUnited States), citric acid, quinine sulfate, and “flavors.” Strangely, many peoplebelieve that tonic water is non-sweet and noncaloric, as seltzer water is. Not so.Tonic water is as sweet as soda, usually between 9.5 and 10 percent sugar by weight.

I like tonic water. I always have. I do not want to reinvent tonic or add newflavors to it. What I want is merely this: hyperfresh, hypercrisp, crystal-clear, andimpeccably clean-tasting tonic—the second-most refreshing beverage in the world(behind seltzer).

THE QUININEThe ingredient that sets tonic water apart from other lemon-lime sodas is quinine, anintensely bitter plant alkaloid that fluoresces intensely under UV or black lights (a factof which many a clubgoer is aware). Quinine comes from the bark of the SouthAmerican cinchona tree and has been used as a medicinal herb in present-day Boliviaand Peru since before recorded history, and since the sixteenth century by Europeansas a malaria cure. Unlike many herbal remedies, which function primarily as placebos,quinine is a legit drug. It was immensely important to Europeans looking to subjugatemalaria-ridden parts of the world in the 1800s. In the mid-nineteenth century peoplelearned that taking small amounts of quinine weekly or daily protected against malaria,and tonic water was born. The amount of quinine in today’s tonic water isn’t enough toact as an effective prophylactic, but in some countries with malaria problems, as Iwitnessed firsthand in Senegal, people regularly consume tonic in hopes of avoidingthe disease.

The papers I have read on malaria prophylaxis indicate that an effective dailydosage is around 0.3 grams of quinine sulfate. The U.S. legal limit for quinine sulfatein tonic water is 85 milligrams per liter, so you’d have to drink 3.5 liters for effectiveprotection. That is a lot, and commercial tonic water usually has much less quininethan the legal limit would allow.

I wanted to get my hands on some quinine. I considered tracking down somecinchona bark, which is relatively easy to do, and steeping it, but decoctions ofcinchona are brown and contain suspended detritus even after they are run through acoffee filter. Since my ideal G&T is crystal clear, this approach was not going to

work. At the time of my early experiments I hadn’t come up with any goodclarification techniques, so I figured the bark would damage my carbonation. Quinineisn’t the only substance in cinchona, so I was also pretty sure that I would introducesome unwanted nonquinine flavors. I decided I had to get the pure stuff.

QUININE SULFATE USP

Sourcing purified quinine wasn’t easy. Quinine is sometimes used in thetreatment of nighttime leg cramps, and until 1994 you could buy it over the counter forthat purpose. At the time of my early experiments it was routinely prescribed bydoctors. My mom is a doctor! No sweat! “No way,” she said, without hesitation.Besides the obvious ethical violations, she said, there was no way she was writing mea prescription for a potentially harmful medicine that I planned to serve in a cocktail.Apparently consuming too much quinine causes a syndrome known as cinchonism,featuring nasty symptoms that range from simple nausea and dizziness, to the morefrightening temporary hearing loss and blindness, all the way up to death from cardiacarrest or renal failure. Luckily, quinine is incredibly bitter and therefore almostimpossible to overdose on accidentally—if it is used properly. You’d never willinglydrink a cocktail with too much quinine in it, I pleaded. My mom (not surprisingly)

turned a deaf ear. I ended up purchasing it from a chemical supply house. You must beextremely careful about what you purchase through a chemical supplier. Manychemicals come in different grades. If you are using a chemical for food or drink, itneeds to be USP (United States Pharmacopeia)-grade, food-grade, or equivalent.Lower grades of chemicals can have dangerous impurities in them. This is a goodacross-the-board safety tip. Unfortunately, USP-grade quinine sulfate is expensive. Asof this writing, 10 grams of the stuff will set you back almost a hundred bucks from achemical supply house, and 100 grams will cost almost $500.

IMPORTANT QUININE SAFETYQuinine is dangerous if used improperly. As little as one-third of a gram, thetherapeutic dose for malaria prophylaxis back in the day, is enough to cause mildsymptoms of cinchonism in some people. I will repeat that: one-third of 1 gram.Never let anyone who isn’t aware of the safety concerns work with quinine.Quinine must be diluted before it’s consumed. I predilute by making quinine simplesyrup, and I use a scale accurate to one-hundredth of a gram. Unless you have a scalethat is at least this accurate, you have no business working with quinine. After thequinine is diluted to a safe concentration, there is no real danger of overdose, unlesssome crazy person pounds a whole liter of your quinine simple syrup.

Once again: do not attempt to use quinine in its undiluted powdered form. Theamount of powdered quinine you would want for a single drink is vanishingly small,nearly impossible to measure. Even if you could measure it properly, quinine tends toclump and is difficult to dissolve; the clumps can’t be tasted if they don’t hit yourtongue, so they don’t give warning of mismeasurement and potential overdose. Youmust check any quinine syrups you make to be sure all the quinine is completelydissolved, and pour them through a fine-mesh strainer as a final step.

USING QUININE AND CINCHONAIn my early experiments I made quinine water for cocktails so I could alter bitternesswithout altering any other components, such as sweetness and tartness. After years ofhoning my recipe, I now just add quinine directly to simple syrup. I find the syrupmuch easier to use, make, store, and dose. Here’s my recipe:

Quinine Simple SyrupMAKES 1 LITER

INGREDIENTS0.5 gram quinine sulfate USP

1 liter simple syrup (615 grams of water and 615 grams sugar mixed till thesugar is totally dissolved; note that these ingredients are given by weight butwill produce 1 liter of syrup by volume)

PROCEDURECarefully weigh the quinine in a small, bone-dry, nonstick, and nonstatic-producingcontainer. You don’t want any quinine sticking to your measuring container. Put therest of the quinine away where no one will mess with it by mistake. Add the simplesyrup to a blender and the quinine to the syrup while the blender is running. Let theblender blend for a minute or so on medium speed. Turn off the blender and wait forthe bubbles to come out of the syrup solution. It should be clear, with no quininespecks left in it. If you still see white powder, blend some more. Strain the syrupthrough a fine strainer into a storage container.

Make the recipe as I have written it and experiment with it awhile before youchange it. If you find my recipe too bitter for your taste, add regular simple syrup to itrather than making the recipe with less quinine. Measuring and dispensing less than0.5 gram accurately can be tricky in bar environments. If you find that this syrup is notbitter enough, you have a more complicated problem. Half a gram grams of quininesulfate per liter of simple syrup is right at the solubility limit of the quinine. You’d behard-pressed to dissolve more in. You would have to make syrup that has less sugar init than 1:1 syrup. Unfortunately, weaker syrups won’t have as long a shelf life.

The solubility limit of quinine is actually one of the beauties of this recipe. If youtake all the precautions—visual checks, straining—it is very hard to overdose on thequinine using this recipe. The standard sweetness of tonic water is 10 percent sugar byweight, so a liter of tonic made with our syrup will have 170 ml (208 grams) ofquinine simple syrup and therefore 0.069 grams of quinine—much less than the legallimit of .083 grams per liter. Even to approach the limit with this syrup, you’d have tomake tonic water that was almost 13 percent sugar by weight, which would beunpalatably sweet.

If you’d rather not deal with quinine, you can work directly with cinchona barkinstead, like this:

Cinchona SyrupMAKES 1.2 LITERS

INGREDIENTS20 grams (around 3 tablespoons) powdered cinchona bark (available online

or at herbal shops; if you can’t find powder, grind bark chips in a spicegrinder)750 ml filtered water750 grams granulated sugar

PROCEDUREAdd the powdered bark to the water in a saucepan and bring to a simmer overmedium-high heat. Lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes, and then allow to cool.Strain through a fine strainer and then through a coffee filter. Press on the bark toextract liquid (or, as an alternative, spin the cinchona water in a centrifuge). Redilutethe cinchona water to 750 ml (you will have lost some water in the infusion process)and add the sugar. Blend to dissolve.

CINCHONA BARK

WHERE THE QUININE COMES FROM IN COMMERCIAL

TONIC WATERA lot of people on the Internet claim that most quinine used in tonic is synthetic, and those same people wouldprobably claim that the quinine I purchase from a supply house is synthetic as well. I cannot find one shred ofcredible evidence (that is, with a traceable source) that this is the case. Quite the opposite. Everything I haveread indicates that extracting quinine from cinchona bark is still the cheapest method of production. Do youthink beverage companies would pay more for a synthetic product? I don’t.

THE LIME AND THE GINIn addition to quinine and sugar, tonic water contains citric acid and “flavors.” To mypalate, those flavors are merely lime, or possibly lemon and lime. One of my biggripes with commercial tonic water is the lameness of the citrus flavor. After I tackledquinine, a more difficult problem came into focus: the lime. Back in 2006 I had nogood way to carbonate liquids containing juice. I hadn’t yet developed any of myclarification techniques, so I could only use freeze-thaw gelatin clarification, whichtook several days to complete, or old-school consommé-style clarification, whichinvolved boiling. Neither was okay. Lime juice must be used the day it is juiced, and itshould never be heated.

I was experimenting with low-temperature vacuum distillation in a cobbled-together rotary evaporator, so I tried to distill the flavor of fresh limes at roomtemperature. I distilled straight lime juice, lime juice with peels, and both of thosemixed with gin. I liked the distillates better without the peels, but the real discoverywas that lime distilled with gin was infinitely better than lime distilled on its own,because ethanol is much better at holding on to volatiles than water is. (Years later Ifound the secret to distilling top-notch flavors without ethanol: a liquid nitrogencondenser. LN freezes all the volatiles on the condenser and captures them. But thatdiscovery was far in the future.) My ability to preserve all the flavors that I wasboiling off in my homemade vacuum was pretty poor, so I soon upgraded to a 1980s-vintage rotary evaporator, sourced on eBay for a couple hundred bucks.

That rotovap furthered my lime and gin distillation efforts immensely. When itarrived, it was filthy and smelled of carbon tetrachloride. (At least, it smelled like mymemory of carbon tetrachloride. My high school chemistry teacher, Mrs. Zook, kept astash of it for her favorite students’ experiments with nonpolar solvents.) I washed thebejeezus out of that thing. It was old and required a lot of care, and as I loggedhundreds of hours flying it, I learned a lot about what makes a rotary evaporator tick.

For starters, I learned what doesn’t distill. Acids from lime juice, for instance,don’t distill. Neither do sugars. In order to make my lime and gin distillations tastelike lime juice, I had to add back lime acids. Lime juice contains a blend of citric andmalic acids in a 2:1 ratio, with a pinch of succinic acid thrown in. This was my firstclue as to why commercial tonic water wasn’t as good as it could be: the makers use

only citric acid. Citric acid on its own tastes only of lemon. It isn’t till you add themalic acid (which, on its own, tastes like a green-apple Warhead candy) that thecombination starts tasting like lime. Both citric and malic acid are easy to get, so it iscriminal that the tonic makers don’t add the malic. The real acid secret, however, wasthe tiny, tiny amount of succinic acid I added. On its own, succinic acid tastes terrible:bitter/salt/acid/unpleasant. Strangely, however, in minute amounts (a couplehundredths of a percent) it makes the flavor of the whole much better.

About this time I also began experimenting with distilling my own gin. I wouldadd whatever flavors I liked—usually some combination of Thai basil, cilantro leaf,roasted oranges, and cucumber, with some juniper thrown in so I could call it gin.Some of those distillations were really good, but none of them were really gin.Learning to distill gave me a real respect for professional distillers. I decided to leavethe gin to the pros.

My dad’s gin of choice was Bombay. Not Bombay Sapphire, but old-schoolBombay London dry gin, with the green label featuring Queen Victoria’s sour mug. Itis a fine product that I like better than the Sapphire. But when I make a G&T, I reachfor Tanqueray. Here is my gin and tonic procedure, circa 2007:

Make a two-to-one mixture of citric and malic acid and dissolve the acid in water.Make some 1:1 simple syrup (I hadn’t yet started making quinine simple). Make somediluted quinine water. Juice a bunch of limes. Add the lime juice to Tanqueray anddistill it in a rotary evaporator at room temperature with a condenser chilled to at least–20°C (–4°F) so that 700 ml of liquid is distilled off for each liter of gin used. Getice. Pour the gin into some ice and stir it down till cold and partially diluted (becareful not to overdilute at this stage). Add the citric-malic acid blend to taste, thensimple syrup, then quinine water, then a pinch of salt and a pinch of succinic acid, thentaste and adjust (I would go through four or five rounds of adding this or that till Ithought it tasted right). Chill and carbonate (I didn’t yet have liquid nitrogen, so Ichilled the mix in the same chiller that I used to chill the condenser of my rotaryevaporator).

THE BOTTLE-STRENGTH GIN AND TONICMy distillation experiments with the G&T led to some bad ideas. The bottle-strengthgin and tonic was an experiment in how far I could push the flavors of a gin and tonic.Could I make a gin-and-tonic shot that was at the same alcoholic strength as the ginthat also tasted good? Of course I could. I had a rotary evaporator. I could easily pullsome water out of the gin and replace it with tonic flavors, but there were issues.

For several reasons, I knew that a G&T shot would have to be served very cold.First, chilling blunts the impact of alcohol on the nose and tongue so other flavors

won’t be overpowered. Second, chilling increases the amount of CO2 I could push intothe booze at any given pressure, and highly alcoholic mixtures need a lot of CO2 totaste really carbonated. I knew from tests with straight vodka that chilled shots tastebest between –16°C (3°F) and –20°C (–4°F). Any temperature much below –20°C (–4°F) starts to be painful. I set my goals for the lowest guaranteed nonpainfultemperature, –20°C (–4°F). Serving a shot that cold brings its own problems. Thebalance between sugar and acid is temperature-dependent. Your tongue’s sensation ofsugar is blunted by cold much more than its sensation of acid is. You need to add moresugar to a –20°C shot than one at –7°C (like one of my regular carbonated drinks) toget the same sweetness. Thus, bottle-strength gin and tonics are drinkable only in avery restricted temperature range. If you overchill one even a couple of degrees,you’ll be cold-burning people’s tongues. If you allow them to warm above –16°C, theshots start to taste sickly sweet and overly alcoholic. The bottle-strength gin and tonicwas good only between –16°C (3°F) and –20°C (–4°F)—a mere 4°C of leeway! Iknew I could serve the shots in perfect shape, but if the people I served it to did sillythings like have a conversation instead of just drinking when I served them, the drinkwould warm up. I could see people standing around talking while the drink turned tocrap in their hands, and it made me sweat. I realized that I couldn’t force people todrink a shot immediately and in its entirety.

This experiment turned me off highly alcoholic carbonated drinks. I now servecarbonated cocktails with lower alcohol-by-volume content. They are moretemperature-resilient, less cloying, and less stupefying, and I am better for it. Thebottle-strength G&T is a stunt that I won’t repeat again, but here’s the technique ifyou’re curious:

Mix a liter of Tanqueray with a half-liter of fresh lime juice and distill to 700 ml in arotary evaporator at room temperature with a condenser set to at least –20°C.(Tanqueray starts off at 47.3% alcohol by volume here in the United States. Very littlealcohol is left behind in the rotovap, so the 700 ml of distillate has an alcohol byvolume of about 67%.) You now have a little less than 300 ml of room to add flavorsto the redistilled Tank and still maintain a bottle strength of 47.3% alcohol by volume.Add concentrated lime acid and simple syrup, quinine, and salt to taste, then chill themix down to –20°C (–4°F). Test for balance, adjust, then dilute back to 1 liter. Rechillthe batch and carbonate at 50 psi. Store the carbonated G&T in a chiller at –20°C tillit is ready to serve. Serve in very chilled shot glasses.

CLARIFICATION MAKES MY LIFE EASIERDistilled lime essence doesn’t keep any longer than fresh lime juice, so I always foundmyself slogging through a lot of distillation right before an event. This was a realhassle, because I could distill only about 1 liter per hour, during which time I was tied

to the rotovap and couldn’t do anything else.

When I finally figured out how to clarify lime juice, my life got a whole loteasier. I didn’t have to use the rotovap to make a gin and tonic anymore! I couldclarify liters of lime juice, and suddenly I could make huge volumes of gin and tonicsfor events. Life was good. The drinks were good. The only fly in the buttermilk: I wasstill chilling the drinks in large batches by hand, using liquid nitrogen prior tocarbonation. This process made it difficult to serve the G&T in top condition at a bar,where chilling individual drinks with liquid nitrogen is problematic (see theAlternative Chilling section, here, for why). You can’t stick the batch in a fridge—notcold enough—or in a freezer—too cold. To solve this problem I purchased a RandellFX fridge/freezer. It can maintain any temperature within a couple of degreesFahrenheit. I just set it to –7°C (about 20°F) and let my carbonated drink batches chillfor several hours prior to carbonation. Later the Randell keeps the drink in perfectcondition for service.

If you are going to make your gin and tonics and drink them all in one day, goahead and add the clarified lime juice before you carbonate. If you are going to keepyour gin and tonics for more than a day (which makes sense for bar service), youshould clarify fresh lime juice every day (never compromise on this) and add it to theprecarbonated chilled drink at service time. The small amount of noncarbonatedclarified lime juice doesn’t mess with the carbonation. Here is my current recipe:MAKES ONE 51⁄2-OUNCE (165-ML) DRINK AT 15.4% ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, 4.9 G/100 MLSUGAR 0.41% ACID

INGREDIENTSFull 13⁄4 ounces (53.5 ml) Tanqueray gin (47% alcohol by volume)Short 1⁄2 ounce (12.5 ml) Quinine Simple Syrup (here) or Cinchona Syrup(here)Short 3 ounces (87 ml) filtered water1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt3⁄8 ounce (11.25 ml) clarified lime juice (6% acid)

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients except the lime juice and chill between –5° and –10°C(14°–23°F). Carbonate at 42 psi. Add the lime juice as the drink is poured into achilled flute. If you carbonate with the lime juice, serve the drink that day. If youcarbonate without the juice and add it later, your G&T will keep indefinitely.

So I don’t leave you with a sense of incompleteness, here is a recipe for tonic

water with options for the acidulant. The fresh lime juice option must be used fresh;the others will keep indefinitely but aren’t quite as good. The procedure is the sameeither way. This tonic is on the dry side.

Tonic Water Two WaysMAKES 34 OUNCES (1021 ML) AT 8.8 G/100 ML SUGAR, 0.75% ACID

INGREDIENTS43⁄4 ounces (142.5 ml) Quinine Simple Syrup (here) or Cinchona Syrup(here)41⁄4 ounces (127.5 ml) clarified lime juice (6% acid), or premade lime acid(here) (6% acid), or, if you don’t have premade lime acid, 5.1 grams ofcitric acid and 2.6 grams malic acid and the tiniest pinch of succinic aciddissolved in 4 ounces (120 ml) of water (6% acid)20 drops (1 ml) saline solution or a couple pinches of salt25 ounces (750 ml) filtered water

PROCEDURECombine all the ingredients and chill and carbonate to between 40 and 45 psi.

FUTURE STEPSRight now I’m interested in finding a drink that has the same feeling as a gin and tonicbut contains no tonic, meaning no lime and no quinine. Why? I just want to. It is achallenge. I’ve come close. My two best candidates for tonic replacers thus far areschisandra berries and camu camu, a South American fruit. But, big drawback: the

folks who sell them here in the United States think of them as medicines andsuperfoods, and they don’t really care how they taste. That attitude drives me nuts.

SCHISANDRASchisandra berries (from the plant Schisandra chinensis) hail from China, where theyare known as five-flavor berries. They are almost true to their name. They are tart andbitter (which is why they are good in tonic-style preparations) but a bit sweet andpeppery as well. Four flavors. Supposedly they are also salty, but I don’t really getthat. I find the flavor intriguing.

Schisandra is used in China as a traditional medicinal herb. Here in the UnitedStates it is available as a dried berry of wildly varying quality. Avoid ones that are sodesiccated as to resemble peppercorns. Look for ones that have a nice red color.

I have tried schisandra in water-based teas, directly steeped in gin, Justinoed intogin, and iSi-infused into gin. So far, direct infusion is winning out. Some of my testshave yielded very refreshing G&T-plus-pepper drinks that I like a lot. But I have notbeen able to get consistent results, probably owing to the variability of the product, soI have no recipe to share. I leave it to you to experiment!

CAMU CAMUIn 2012, I attended a lecture in Bogotá on the use of rare indigenous Colombianrainforest products. Typically I relish the opportunity to learn about any newingredient. Unfortunately, the lecture was in Spanish and, stupidly, I can’t speakSpanish. The speaker began the presentation with a fruit he claimed had more vitaminC than any on earth, an antioxidant powerhouse named camu camu (Myrciaria dubia).The fruit, I gathered from the little Spanish I could understand, contained 1.5 percentpure vitamin C. I could not have cared less. I get so much vitamin C on a daily basisthat I make Linus Pauling look like he was about to get scurvy.

There was a tasting after the lecture. Out came some camu camu puree. I wasn’texcited at first, since I had hoped to try fresh fruits. But apparently camu camu isharvested only by canoe-rowing collectors during the rainy season, from half-submerged wild plants. Fresh fruits would never survive the transport to the city andare converted to puree almost on the spot. The puree was bright red. I tasted it. Wow.I instantly knew I had found a perfect gin and tonic replacer! Imagine a fruit with thebitterness of tonic, the acidity of a lime, and an extra spiciness I can only describe asfaintly Christmasy. I loved it. I pleaded, borrowed, and begged to get a single jar ofthe stuff. Because I was in Bogotá for a cocktail demonstration, I happened to havesome Pectinex Ultra SP-L on hand, and a tiny $200 desktop centrifuge. I clarified thecamu camu into a clear juice, mixed it with gin and sugar and salt, and carbonated it.Damn if that wasn’t a fantastic drink. I was elated.

When I got home, I began researching camu camu. It is available in the UnitedStates, but mainly as a horrid powder. As I’ve said, superfood types don’t tend to fretabout taste. I finally found a source of the puree and ordered it. It was from Peru, notColombia, but how different could it be? When it arrived, I anxiously shredded thepackage to get at it. When I saw the puree, I was crestfallen: it was yellow, not red,which meant one of three things: it was a different kind of fruit (or at least a differentcultivar), it was harvested in an unripe state, or the skins had not remained in contactwith the fruit pulp during processing. When I tasted it, my fears were confirmed. Itdidn’t have the spiciness or the bitter bite. Damn. Someone out there in Colombia hasaccess to this wonderful ingredient. Do the world a favor and use it!

SOURCESEQUIPMENT AND BOOKS

Cocktail Kingdomwww.cocktailkingdom.comThese folks sell all the good cocktail gear, and they have the best reprints of classic cocktail books that I haveever seen. Check out the Bad Ass Muddler, the fine-spring strainer, and the bitters bottle dasher tops.

J. B. Princewww.jbprince.comThis is an awesome chef’s supply store that sells only high-quality stuff. It has a wide array of icecarving/handling equipment. If you find yourself in New York City, visit the showroom at 36 East 31st Street,eleventh floor. You won’t be disappointed.

Mark Powers and Companyhttp://www.markpowers-and-company.comI get all my soda and carbonation supplies here except the carbonator caps, including cold plates, carbonators,Corny kegs, tubing, and clamps. The staff is friendly and the prices are good.

Liquid Breadhttp://www.liquidbread.comMakers of the carbonator cap.

Katomwww.katom.comThis is a good inexpensive website for restaurant supplies like bar mats if you don’t have access to real livekitchen-supply joints.

McMaster-Carrwww.mcmaster.comNeed some weird industrial doo-dad? Need it tomorrow? Are you willing to pay 30 percent more than youshould just so you don’t have to scour the Internet for another source? McMaster’s got you covered. I use itconstantly. Similar but less complete industrial suppliers are www.grainger.com and www .mscdirect.com.

Amazonwww.amazon.comYeah, you already knew to check here. I include it because many suppliers of scientific gear have startedselling on Amazon, including purveyors of the $200 centrifuge and all the lab glassware you will ever need.

If you are looking for books, skip Amazon and buy from the folks at Kitchen Arts and Letters in New York,www.kitchenartsandletters .com. I support them. The knowledge they can offer up on individual books andauthors is worth paying the extra nickels for.

For old books I used to use the aggregator www.bookfinder.com excusively, but it has become polluted withcrappy reprints and I now rely on www.ebay.com and www.abebooks.com.

INGREDIENTSReal Live Stores

If you live in New York you have access to two great ingredient and spice shops that sell everything you need tomake any type of bitters. Every major metropolis probably has similar shops. If you can’t find them, the Internet isyour friend.

Kalustyans, 123 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10016www.kalustyans.com

Dual Specialty Store, 91 First Ave., New York, NY 10003The website is too horrid for me to direct you there.

Wherever you live (unless Manhattan is home) you probably have access to a home-brew shop that carries alot of useful ingredients for cocktails, including malic, citric, tartaric, and lactic acid, as well as equipment likecarbonator caps and other fun stuff. There are also scads of home-brew shops online.

INTERNET SOURCESModernist Pantrywww.modernistpantry.comA one-stop shop for modern ingredients such as Pectinex SP-L, hydrocolloids, and so on.

Terra Spicewww.terraspice.comA good place for quality spices and extracts.

WillPowderwww.willpowder.netSupplies modern ingredients from pastry chef Will Goldfarb.

Le Sanctuairewww.le-sanctuaire.comA supplier of high-end cooking equipment and ingredients. This site has the best selection of hydrocolloidsfrom CP Kelco, the folks who do gellan and really good pectins.

TIC Gumswww.ticgums.comThe folks who make Ticaloid 210S and Ticaloid 310S, the mixture of gum arabic and xanthan gum that I useto make orgeats and oil syrups. They will sell to normal folks like us.

FURTHER READINGGENERAL BOOKS ON COCKTAILS AND SPIRITSHere is a short list of cocktail books and authors I have found useful or entertaining over the years.

Baker, Charles H., Jr. Jigger, Beaker and Glass: Drinking Around the World Derrydale, 2001 (1939). Araucous romp through the decades-long, worldwide cocktail peregrinations of Charles H. Baker, Jr. A gem.

Berry, Jeff. Beach Bum Berry Remixed. 2nd ed. SLG, 2009. If you like Tiki, Berry is the man to trust. Thisvolume is a compilation of two of his books.

Conigliaro, Tony. The Cocktail Lab: Unraveling the Mysteries of Flavor and Aroma in Drink, withRecipes. Ten Speed, 2013. My good friend Tony Conigliaro is the finest practitioner of the modern cocktailthat I know. Here is a look at how he thinks.

Craddock, Harry. The Savoy Cocktail Book. Martino, 2013 (1930). This is the old-school recipe book thatevery self-respecting cocktail dork should have in his or her library. One of the few manuals from which thecocktail revolution was launched. I own it, although I don’t really use it.

Curtis, Wayne. And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails. Broadway Books,2007. If you enjoy viewing history through the lens of products you like, you’ll dig Curtis’s historical accountof rum through the ages.

DeGroff, Dale. The Craft of the Cocktail. Clarkson Potter, 2002. A must-own cocktail book. Dale is theking of the cocktail, and this is his great cocktail tome.

Embury, David A. The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. Mud Puddle, 2008 (1948). This was the first cocktailbook I owned. I found an old copy at a used-book store and picked it up on a lark. Lucky choice. Emburywas a great writer. He was a lawyer by trade and a cocktail thinker by avocation. I once met an old-timebartender who had served Embury; he said the guy was a lousy tipper, which kind of ruined him for me. Whymust heroes be jerks?

Haigh, Ted. Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: From the Alamagoozlum to the Zombie—100Rediscovered Recipes and the Stories Behind Them. Quarry, 2009. Good book.

Hess, Robert. The Essential Bartender’s Guide. Mud Puddle, 2008. Hess is a longtime fixture of thecocktail intelligentsia. This is his intro-to-bartending guide. Many people, once they reach a certain level ofproficiency, dismiss introductory books. I don’t. The best thing about this kind of book is the direct view it canprovide into the writer’s way of thinking.

Liu, Kevin K. Craft Cocktails at Home: Offbeat Techniques, Contemporary Crowd-Pleasers, andClassics Hacked with Science. Kevin Liu, 2013. Liu’s book on the science of cocktails is worth the read.One of the few books on the subject as of this writing.

Meehan, Jim. The PDT Cocktail Book: The Complete Bartender’s Guide from the CelebratedSpeakeasy. Sterling Epicure, 2011. PDT is one of the most renowned bars in the United States. Meehan hasdone a great service with The PDT Cocktail Book , giving an actual account of the recipes used there.

O’Neil, Darcy S. Fix the Pumps. Art of Drink, 2010. Fix the Pumps has been tremendously influential in thecocktail world. With it, O’Neil ushered in the resurgence of interest in the artistry of the old-school soda jerk.Bartenders mine this book for ideas on both alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks.

Pacult, F. Paul. Kindred Spirits 2. Spirit Journal, 2008. While this edition is getting a little long in the tooth(let’s hope he makes a third edition soon), no one does spirits reviews like Pacult.

Regan, Gary. The Joy of Mixology. Clarkson Potter, 2003. Fantastic book. I don’t agree with everythingRegan says, but his landmark book is a must-read. His drink systematics are particularly interesting.

Stewart, Amy. The Drunken Botanist. Algonquin, 2013. This book ran like wildfire through the cocktailcommunity when it was published. It is delightful. It simplifies and glosses over some subjects, but thatdoesn’t spoil the enjoyment. You will pick up some interesting facts from this book and they will spark ideasfor the future.

Wondrich, David. Imbibe! Perigree, 2007. Really, you can’t go wrong with anything Wondrich writes. Readthis one and his other book, Punch. Wondrich is a born storyteller with a great feel for history in general andfor the history of the common drinking person in particular. Ostensibly Imbibe! is the story of Jerry Thomas,the author of the first cocktail book and a famous American barman of the mid-nineteenth century, butWondrich casts a much wider net.

BOOKS ON FOOD AND SCIENCE YOU MAY FIND HELPFULDamodaran, Srinivasan, Kirk L. Parkin, and Owen R. Fennema. Fennema’s Food Chemistry, FourthEdition (Food Science and Technology). CRC, 2007. The standard textbook in food chemistry.

McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. Scribner, 2004. If youdon’t already own On Food and Cooking, go out and buy it right now. It is the reference for science asapplied to making things delicious. How many other food books are recognized simply by their acronym?OFAC is hugely influential, and hugely useful. The current edition, from 2004, is a vastly different book fromthe original, groundbreaking 1984 edition. McGee was forced to remove a lot of the historical vignettes andstories that peppered the first edition to make way for all-new information he added in the second. You willwant both.

———. The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore. Wiley, 1992. McGee’s second book, nowsadly out of print, is entirely different from OFAC. In The Curious Cook , McGee shows how to think like ascientist in the kitchen—which is entirely different from, and more important than, knowing a lot of science.

Myhrvold, Nathan, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet. Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking.Cooking Lab, 2011. The greatest cookbook achievement of all time. If you want to investigate moderntechniques, this is the place to start.

What follows is a nonexhaustive list of books and articles related to specific sections of this book.

PART 1: PRELIMINARIESMEASUREMENT, UNITS, EQUIPMENT

If you are interested in home distilling, these two books are good places to start.

Smiley, Ian. Making Pure Corn Whiskey: A Professional Guide for Amateur and Micro Distillers. IanSmiley 2003.

Nixon, Michael. The Compleat Distiller. Amphora Society, 2004.

INGREDIENTS

Nielsen, S. Suzanne, ed. Food Analysis. Springer 2010. Pages 232–37 describe how to calculate and convertvarious measures of titratable acidity.

Saunt, James. Citrus Varieties of the World. Sinclair International Business Resources, 2000.

PART 2: TRADITIONAL COCKTAILS

Weightman, Gavin. The Frozen Water Trade: A True Story. Hyperion, 2004. This book is the story of howice became a commercial commodity in the nineteenth century prior to the advent of mechanical refrigeration.It explains the marketing genius that made iced drinks popular in the nineteenth century—they were notalways ubiquitous—and it whet many a bartender’s desire for beautiful clear ice like the ice of yore that washarvested from lakes.

Oxtoby, David W. Principles of Modern Chemistry. 7th ed. Cengage Learning, 2011. Oxtoby is my go-toreference for entropy, enthalpy, and other general chemistry information.

Garlough, Robert, et al. Ice Sculpting the Modern Way. Cengage, 2003. If you want to know more about icecarving.

PART 3: NEW TECHNIQUES AND IDEASAlternative Chilling

U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. “Hazards of Nitrogen Asphyxiation.” Safety BulletinNo. 2003-10-B. June, 2003.

RED-HOT POKERS

Brown, John Hull. Early American Beverages. C. E. Tuttle, 1966. Old-time recipes, including those that usethe flip dog.

RAPID INFUSIONS, SHIFTING PRESSURE

Parsons, Brad Thomas. Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, with Cocktails, Recipes, andFormulas. Ten Speed, 2011. The book to buy if you want to learn about making traditional bitters.

CLARIFICATION

Moreno, Juan, and Rafael Peinado. Enological Chemistry. Academic, 2012. Chapter 19, Wine Colloids,deals with the subject of wine fining and clarification.

WASHING

BOOKS

Phillips,G. O. et al. Handbook of Hydrocolloids. 2nd ed. Woodhead, 2009. Really pricey, but it’s thestandard reference for hydrocolloids. Has good chapters on gellan, chitosan, milk proteins, and egg proteins,which are used in this book. It also has chapters on agar, gum arabic, pectin, and gelatin that might be helpfulin other areas of cocktail science.

ARTICLES

Luck, Genevieve, et al. “Polyphenols, Astringency and Proline-rich Proteins.” Phytochemistry 37. no. 2(1994): 357–71. The title pretty much tells it all.

Ozdal, Tugba, et al. “A Review on Protein–Phenolic Interactions and Associated Changes.” Food ResearchInternational 51 (2013): 954–70. While the focus of this paper is the possibility that protein-phenolicinteractions may reduce the number of “health effects” that phenolic compounds may confer—a subject Icouldn’t care less about, because today’s health-giver is almost always tomorrow’s enemy—it does give agood overview of the interactions.

Hasni, Imed, et al. “Interaction of Milk a- and b-Caseins with Tea Polyphenols.” Food Chemistry 126 (2011):630–39. This article deals with the specific reaction that makes Tea Time work.

Lee, Catherine A., and Zata M. Vickers. “Astringency of Foods May Not Be Directly Related to Salivary

Lubricity.” Journal of Food Science 77, no. 9 (2012). An article that goes against the commonly held viewthat astringency is solely related to the tongue’s loss of ability to lubricate itself.

de Freitas, Victor, and Nuno Mateus. “Protein/Polyphenol Interactions: Past and Present Contributions.Mechanisms of Astringency Perception.” Current Organic Chemistry 16 (2012): 724–46. Is what it says itis.

CARBONATION

BOOKS

Liger-Belair, Gérard. Uncorked: The Science of Champagne. Rev. ed. (Princeton University Press, 2013.Liger-Belair, the champagne physicist, has a sweet, sweet job. This is a revised edition of his book onchampagne science for lay audiences.

Steen, David P., and Philip Ashurst. Carbonated Soft Drinks: Formulation and Manufacture. Wiley-Blackwell, 2006. Technical, dry, and expensive. Unless you need to know the nitty-gritty of commercial sodaproduction, you can skip this book, but I often use it for reference.

Woodroff, Jasper Guy, and G. Frank Phillips. Beverages: Carbonated and Noncarbonated. AVI, 1974.Out of print, out of date, and dull, but I need it from time to time. It’s one of a series of books on foodtechnology published by AVI Press in the 1970s, standard-setting in its day.

ARTICLES

Liger-Belair, Gérard, et al. “Unraveling the Evolving Nature of Gaseous and Dissolved Carbon Dioxide inChampagne Wines: A State-of-the-Art Review, from the Bottle to the Tasting Glass.” Analytica ChimicaActa 732 (2012): 1–15. Awesome article. Title is fairly explanatory.

——— “Champagne Cork Popping Revisited Through High-Speed Infrared Imaging: The Role ofTemperature.” Journal of Food Engineering 116 (2013): 78–85. Another fun read from Liger-Belair.

———. “Carbon Dioxide and Ethanol Release from Champagne Glasses, Under Standard TastingConditions.” Advances in Food and Nutrition Research 67 (2012): 289–340. Liger-Belair goes into depthon the effects that glass shape and pouring style have on carbon dioxide levels in champagne, and how theseeffects affect the drinking experience.

———. “CO2 Volume Fluxes Outgassing from Champagne Glasses: The Impact of Champagne Ageing.”Analytica Chimica Acta 660 (2010): 29–34. The champagne master explains how aging champagne affectsbubble size.

Cuomo, R., et al. “Carbonated Beverages and Gastrointestinal System: Between Myth and Reality.”Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases 19 (2009): 683–89. Examines whether or not bubblesare bad for you. Short answer: no.

Roberts, C., et al. “Alcohol Concentration and Carbonation of Drinks: The Effect on Blood Alcohol Levels.”Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine 14 (2007): 398–405. Interesting study finding that two-thirds ofthe individuals tested got drunk faster on bubbly than on flat booze.

Bisperink, Chris G. J., et al. “Bubble Growth in Carbonated Liquids.” Colloids and Surfaces A:Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects 85 (1994): 231–53. This article demonstrates that carbonationlevels would need to be hundreds of times higher than normal to create spontaneous bubble nucleation.

Profaizer, M. “Shelf Life of PET Bottles Estimated Via a Finite Elements Method Simulation of CarbonDioxide and Oxygen Permeability.” Italian Food and Beverage Technology 48 (April 2007).

PART 4: LITTLE JOURNEYSHubbard, Elbert. Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great. Memorial edition in 14 volumes Roycrofters,1916. Hubbard wrote a series of short, rambling, opinionated biographies called Little Journeys on famouspeople throughout history and from all walks of life. I read them as a child, and they really stuck with me.Though not much remembered today, Hubbard and his American Arts and Crafts community, theRoycrofters, were important and influential in the early 1900s. Some of the handprinted Roycrofters editions,especially the illuminated ones done in green suede-covered boards, are treasures. I named my section afterthese books.

APPLES

Beach, Spenser Ambrose. Apples of New York. 2 vols. (J. B Lyon, 1905). Almost 110 years old and still thedefinitive book on apples, Apples of New York was the first of a series of mammoth books to come out ofthe Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York, where McGee and I went apple-tasting. The restof the Fruits of New York series—grapes, pears, cherries, peaches, small fruits, and plums—were written bythe inimitable U. P. Hedrick, but he is a subject for a different book. All the Fruits of New York books areworth looking at, and they are all available to read online.

Traverso, Amy. The Apple Lover’s Cookbook. W. W. Norton, 2011. One of the few good apple books thatis also a cookbook. Beautifully shot.

Hanson, Beth. The Best Apples to Buy and Grow. Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2005. Great little inexpensivebook. I love all the books in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s horticultural series. Also check out BuriedTreasures: Tasty Tubers of the World.

Morgan, Joan, et al. The New Book of Apples: The Definitive Guide to Over 2,000 Varieties. Ebury,2003. This is a book that was written with the Brogdale collection of apples in Kent, England, as its tastinghome base. The Brogdale is the U.K. equivalent of our apple collection in Geneva, N.Y., but also does pears,small fruits, nuts, and more. This book is great, but it definitely skews toward varieties that do well in the U.K.The history section is worth looking at.

COFFEE

BOOKS

Illy, Andrea, and Rinantonio Viani. Espresso Coffee, Second Edition: The Science of Quality. AcademicPress, 2005. Great little technical book on espresso written by the scientific leader of the current generationof the Illy family. There is a similarly titled coffee-table book that isn’t useful for technical info.

Rao, Scott. Everything but Espresso. Scott Rao, 2010. Scott Rao’s books have been game-changers in thecoffee world. You kind of need to check out this one and the one below.

———. The Professional Barista’s Handbook: An Expert Guide to Preparing Espresso, Coffee, andTea. Scott Rao, 2008.

Schomer, David C. Espresso Coffee: Professional Techniques. Espresso Vivace Roasteria, 1996. Perhapsa bit out of date now. Schomer was a revolutionary at the time (still is, I guess). It was a visit to his shop,Café Vivace, in Seattle in 2001 that showed me I didn’t know diddly-squat about espresso. I bought this bookon the spot.

ARTICLES

Illy, Ernesto, and Luciano Navarini. “Neglected Food Bubbles: The Espresso Coffee Foam.” FoodBiophysics 6 (2011): 335–48. Good paper on the working of foam (crema) in espresso.

GIN AND TONIC

CFR: Code of Federal Regulations Title 21—Food and Drugs §172.575. These are the U.S. governmentregulations on quinine.

Carter, H. R. “Quinine Prophylaxis for Malaria.” Public Health Reports (1896–1970) 29, no. 13 (March27, 1914): 741–49. Interesting paper on the history of quinine use and the doses necessary to prevent and/ortreat malaria.

Recipe List

RECIPE

INGREDIENTS

STATS

Simple Syrup

Equal parts sugar and water by weight. Mix to dissolve.

Honey Syrup

64 grams of water to every 100 grams of honey.

Butter Syrup

10 allspice berries, crushed200 grams water3 grams TIC Gums Pretested Ticaloid 210S150 grams melted butter200 grams granulated sugar

Simmer allspice in water to infuse, strain, hydrate Ticaloid in water,emulsify in butter, then blend in sugar.

Cold ButteredRum

2 ounces (60 ml) spiced rum, such as Sailor JerryFat ounce (11⁄8 ounces, 33.75 ml) Butter Syrup1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lime juice

Shake with ice and serve in a chilled single old-fashioned glass.

Makes one 5 3⁄5-ounce(168-ml) drink at 16.4%alcohol by volume, 8.6g/100 ml sugar, 0.54%acid

Any NutOrgeat

FOR NUT MILK:600 grams very hot water200 grams nut of your choiceFOR EVERY 500 GRAMS NUT MILK:1.75 grams Ticaloid 210S0.2 gram xanthan gum500 grams granulated sugar

Blend hot water and nuts, then pass nut milk through a fine filter. Hydrate Ticaloid into nut milk in a blender, then blend in sugar.

94 grams filtered water 4 grams citric acid

Lime Acid 2 grams malic acid0.04 gram succinic acid (optional)

Lime AcidOrange

1 liter freshly squeezed orange juice 32 grams citric acid20 grams malic acid

ChampagneAcid

94 grams warm water 3 grams tartaric acid3 grams lactic acid (use the powder form)

Saline Solution

20 grams salt 80 ml filtered water

Martini

2 ounces (60 ml) gin or vodka, room at temperature3⁄8–

1⁄2 ounce (10–14 ml) Dolin dry vermouth (or your favorite), at roomtemperature

1 or 3 olives on a toothpick, or a lemon twist

Stir with ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass.

Manhattans fortwo

4 ounces (120 ml) Rittenhouse rye (50% alcohol by volume)

Fat 13⁄4 ounces (53 ml) Carpano Antica Formula vermouth (16.5%alcohol by volume)

4 dashes Angostura bitters

2 brandied cherries or orange twists

Stir with ice and serve in chilled coupe glasses.

Makes two 4 1⁄3-ounce(129-ml) drinks at 27%alcohol by volume, 3.3g/100 ml sugar, 0.12%acid

Whiskey Sourwith Egg White

2 ounces (60 ml) bourbon or rye (50% alcohol by volume)

Fat 1⁄2 ounce (17.5 ml) freshly strained lemon juice3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) simple syrup

Pinch of salt

1 large egg white (1 ounce or 30 ml)

Mix everything but the egg white in a tin, then add the egg white andshake without ice for at least 10 seconds. Add ice and shake an

Makes one 6.6-ounce(198-ml) drink at 15.0%alcohol by volume, 7.1g/100 ml sugar, 0.53%acid

additional 10 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe glass through a teastrainer.

Classic Daiquiri

2 ounces (60 ml) light, clean rum (40% alcohol by volume)3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) simple syrup3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice

2 drops saline solution (20%) or a pinch of salt

Shake with ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass.

Makes one 5 1⁄3-ounce(159-ml) drink at 15.0%alcohol by volume, 8.9g/100 ml sugar, 0.85%acid

HemingwayDaiquiri

2 ounces (60 ml) light, clean rum (40% alcohol by volume)3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) Luxardo Maraschino (32% alcohol by volume)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained grapefruit juice

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Shake with ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass.

Makes one 5 4⁄5-ounce(174-ml) drink at 16.5%alcohol by volume, 4.2g/100 ml sugar, 0.98%acid

Negroni fortwo

2 ounces (60 ml) gin

2 ounces (60 ml) Campari

2 ounces (60 ml) sweet vermouth

2 orange twists

Stir with ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass or over a large rock.

Makes two 5.2-ounce(127-ml) drinks at 20.7%alcohol by volume, 9.4g/100 ml sugar, 0.14%acid

Cliff Old-Fashioned

2 ounces (60 ml) Elijah Craig 12-year bourbon (47% alcohol by

volume)3⁄8 ounce (11 ml) Coriander Syrup

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Orange twist

One 2-inch-by-2-inch clear ice cube

Build over a large rock in an old-fashioned glass.

Makes one 3-ounce (90-ml) drink at 32% alcoholby volume, 7.7 g/100 mlsugar, 0.0% acid

125 grams coriander seeds, preferably with a fresh, citrusy aroma (for

soda syrup, reduce to 100 grams)

CorianderSyrup

550 grams filtered water

500 grams granulated sugar

5 grams salt

10 grams crushed red pepper

The ShakenMargarita

2 ounces (60 m) tequila (40% alcohol by volume)3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) Cointreau3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice

¼ ounce (7.5 ml) simple syrup

5 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

Shake with ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass.

Makes one 5 9⁄10-ounce(178-ml) drink at 18.5%alcohol by volume, 6.0g/100 ml sugar, 0.76%acid

Blender Marg

1 ounce (30 ml) Cointreau3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) La Puritita mezcal1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) Yellow Chartreuse1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lime juice

10 drops Hellfire bitters or spicy nonacidic stuff of your choice

5 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt About 4 ounces (120grams) ice

Combine ingredients in a blender and blend briefly.

Makes one 5.3-ounce(158-ml) drink at 17.2%alcohol by volume, 7.9g/100 ml sugar, 0.57%acid

GenericBlender Sour

2¼ ounces (67.5 ml) liquid that contains around 0.9 ounces (27 ml)

pure ethanol and 12.75 grams sugar (see Sugared Booze recipe,below)

1⁄2 ounce (30 ml) freshly strained lemon, lime, or other sour juice

4 ounces (120 ml) ice

2–5 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

Combine ingredients in a blender and blend briefly.

Sugared Boozefor blendeddrinks

212 grams superfine sugar (regular granulated sugar is okay but will

take longer to dissolve)

1 liter either 80 or 100 proof (40 or 50% alcohol by volume) spirits

Makes 1140 ml (38ounces) liquor at either44% or 35% alcohol byvolume

RittenhouseBlender Sour

2 ounces (60 ml) sugared Rittenhouse rye (44% alcohol by volume;

see Sugared Booze recipe, above)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lemon juice

¼ ounce(7.5 ml) freshly strained orange juice

4 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

4 ounces (120 grams) ice

Combine ingredients in a blender and blend briefly.

Makes one 5¼-ounce(157-ml) drink at 16.7%alcohol by volume, 7.8g/100 ml sugar, 0.61%acid

BlenderDaiquiri

2¼ ounces (67.5 ml) sugared Flor de Caña white rum (35% alcohol by

volume; see Sugared Booze recipe, above)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lime juice

4 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

4 ounce (120 grams) ice

Combine ingredients in a blender and blend briefly.

Makes one 5¼-ounce(157-ml) drink at 15%alcohol by volume, 8.1g/100 ml sugar, 0.57%acid

Frozen Daiquirifor two

4 ounces (120 ml) white rum (40% alcohol by volume), preferably

clean-tasting and cheap, like Flor de Caña

4 ounces (120 ml) filtered water

11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) simple syrup

4 drops saline solution or 2 pinches of salt

13⁄4 ounces (52.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice

Combine ingredients in a Ziploc bag and freeze. When frozen, blendfor a couple seconds.

Makes two 5.6-ounce(169-ml) drinks at 14.2%alcohol by volume, 8.4g/100 ml sugar, 0.87%acid

Ebony for two

5 ounces (150 ml) Carpano vermouth (16% alcohol by volume, roughly

16 grams sugar/dl, roughly 0.6% acid)

11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

21⁄2 ounces (75 ml) filtered water

4 drops saline solution or 2 pinches of salt

Flat 3⁄4 ounce (21 ml) freshly strained lemon juice

Combine ingredients in a Ziploc bag and freeze. When frozen, blendfor a couple seconds.

Makes two 4 4⁄5-ounce(145.5-ml) drinks at14.4% alcohol by volume,8.4 g/100 ml sugar, 0.74%acid

Ivory for two

51⁄2 ounces (165ml) Dolin Blanc vermouth (16% alcohol by volume,

roughly 13 grams sugar/dl, roughly 0.6% acid)

1 ounce (30 ml) vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

2 ounces (60 ml) filtered water

4 drops saline solution or 2 pinches of salt

Flat 3⁄4 ounce (21 ml) freshly strained lime juice

Combine ingredients in a Ziploc bag and freeze. When frozen, blendfor a couple seconds.

Makes two 4 3⁄5-ounce(138-ml) drinks at 13.9%alcohol by volume, 7.9g/100 ml sugar, 0.81%acid

StrawberryBandito

2 ounces (60 ml) strawberry juice (8 g/dl sugar, 1.5% acid) (or you can

use 21⁄2 ounces-75 grams frozen strawberries and 15 grams ice)

2 ounces (60 ml) Jalapeño Tequila or regular blanco tequila (40% abv)1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice

Short 1⁄2 ounce (12.5) simple syrup

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Shake liquid ingredients with juice ice and serve in a chilled glass.

Makes one 4 3⁄5-ounce(140-ml) drink at 17.1%alcohol by volume, 9.0g/100 ml sugar, 0.96%acid

Shaken Drake

11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) Helbing Kümmel liqueur (35% alcohol by volume)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

1 bar spoon (4 ml) grade B maple syrup (87.5 g/dl sugar)

5 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

2 ounces (60 ml) freshly squeezed and strained grapefruit juice (10.4g/dl sugar, 2.4% acid) frozen into 1-ounce (30-ml) ice cubes

Shake liquid ingredients with juice ice and serve in a chilled glass.

Makes one 4.6-ounce(139-ml) drink at 15.6%alcohol by volume, 10.2g/100 ml sugar, 1.03%acid

Scotch andCoconut

11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) Ardbeg 10-year Scotch (46% alcohol by volume)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) Cointreau (40% alcohol by volume)1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) freshly strained lemon juice

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

21⁄2 ounces (75 ml) fresh coconut water (6.0 g/dl sugar) frozen into 1¼ounce (37.5 ml) ice cubes

1 orange twist

Makes one 4 7⁄10-ounce(142-ml) drink at 18.6%alcohol by volume, 5.9g/100 ml sugar, 0.32%acid

1 star anise pod

Shake liquid ingredients with juice ice and serve in a chilled glass.Express orange over the top and float the star anise.

Manhattans bythe Pitcher

14 ounces (420 ml) Rittenhouse rye (50% alcohol by volume)

61⁄4 ounces (187.5 ml) Carpano Antica Formula vermouth (16.5%alcohol by volume, roughly 16% sugar, 0.6% acid)

1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) Angostura bitters

101⁄2 ounces (315 ml) ice water (water that has been chilled with ice;don’t add the ice)

Garnish of your choice

Makes seven 4 2⁄5-ounce(132-ml) drinks at 26%alcohol by volume, 3.2g/100 ml sugar, 0.12%acid

BottledManhattans,ProfessionalStyle

Three 750 ml bottles Rittenhouse rye

One 1 liter Bottle Carpano Antica Formula vermouth

1 ounce (30 ml) Angostura bitters

1700 ml filtered water

Makes thirty 4 1⁄2-ounce(136-ml) drinks at 26%alcohol by volume, 3.2g/100 ml sugar, 0.12%acid

TBD: ThaiBasil Daiquiri

5 grams (7 large)Thai basil leaves

2 ounces (60 ml) Flor de Caña white rum or other clean white rum(40% alcohol by volume)

3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice

Short 3⁄4 ounce (20 ml) simple syrup

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Nitro- or blender-muddle herbs with rum. Shake with ice and serve ina chilled coupe glass.

Makes one 5 1⁄3-ounce(160-ml) drink at 15%alcohol by volume, 8.9g/100 ml sugar, and0.85% acid

Spanish Chris

3.5 grams (a small handful) fresh tarragon leaves

11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) La Puritita mezcal or any fairly clean blancomezcal (40% alcohol by volume)

1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) Luxardo Maraschino (32% alcohol by volume)3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup

3 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

Makes one 5-ounce (149-ml) drink at 15.3%alcohol by volume, 10.0g/100 ml sugar, 0.91%acid

Nitro- or blender-muddle herbs with spirits. Shake with ice and servein chilled coupe glass.

The Flat Leaf

6 grams fresh parsley leaves or 4 grams fresh lovage leaves (a small

handful)

2 ounces (60 ml) gin (47.3% alcohol by volume)

1 ounce (30 ml) freshly strained bitter/sour orange juice or 3⁄4 ounce(27.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice

1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup

3 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

Nitro- or blender-muddle herb with gin. Shake with ice and serve inchilled coupe.

Makes one 5 1⁄2-ounce(164-ml) drink at 17.7%alcohol by volume, 7.9g/100 ml sugar, 0.82%acid

The Carvone

6 grams (a good handful) fresh mint leaves

2 ounces (60 ml) Linie aquavit (40% alcohol by volume)

Short 1⁄2 ounce (13 ml) simple syrup

3 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

1 lemon twist

Nitro- or blender-muddle herbs with aquavit. Shake with ice and servein a chilled coupe glass with the twist of lemon.

Makes one 3 9⁄10-ounce(117-ml) drink at 20.4%alcohol by volume, 6.8g/100 ml sugar, 0% acid

Red-Hot Ale,Poker Style

1 ounce (30 ml) Cognac

3 ounces (90 ml) malty but not hoppy abbey ale, such as OmmegangAbbey ale

1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) simple syrup1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) freshly strained lemon juice

3 dashes Rapid Orange Bitters

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

1 orange twist

Mix ingredients and hit with a red hot poker.

Makes one 4 3⁄5-ounce(138-ml) drink at 15.3%alcohol by volume, 3.5g/100 ml sugar, 0.33%acid. Finished volume andalcohol by volume varywith poking time.

21⁄2 teaspoons (12 grams) granulated sugar

1 ounce (30 ml) Cognac

Red-Hot Ale,Pan Style

3 ounces (90 ml) abbey ale

3 dashes Rapid Orange Bitters1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) freshly strained lemon juice

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

1 orange twist

Heat sugar in a pan till almost burned, add liquor (it will flame), addother ingredients to extinguish, and dissolve sugar. Serve with thetwist.

Makes one 4 3⁄5-ounce(138-ml) drink at 15.3%alcohol by volume, sugarincalculable, 0.33% acid.Finished volume andalcohol by volume varywith burn time.

Red-Hot Cider,Poker Style

1 ounce (30 ml) apple brandy, such as Lairds Bottled in Bond (50%

alcohol by volume)

3 ounces (90 ml) hard apple cider (use decent stuff; I usually use aNorman-style cider)

1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup1⁄4 ounce (7.5ml) freshly strained lemon juice

2 dashes Rapid Orange Bitters

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

1 cinnamon stick

Mix ingredients and hit with a red-hot poker.

Makes one 4 3⁄5-ounce(138-ml) drink at 15.3%alcohol by volume, 6.5g/100 ml sugar, 0.31%acid. Finished volume andalcohol by volume varywith poking time.

Red-Hot Cider,Pan Style

3 teaspoons (12.5 grams) granulated sugar

1 ounce (30 ml) apple brandy (50% alcohol by volume)

3 ounces (90 ml) hard apple cider

2 dashes Rapid Orange Bitters1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) freshly strained lemon juice

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

1 cinnamon stick

Heat sugar in a pan till almost burned, add liquor (it will flame), addother ingredients to extinguish, and dissolve sugar. Serve with thecinnamon stick.

Makes one 4 3⁄5-ounce(138-ml) drink at 15.3%alcohol by volume, sugarincalculable, 0.31% acid.Finished volume andalcohol by volume varywith burn time.

Turmeric Gin

500 ml Plymouth gin

100 grams fresh turmeric thinly sliced into 1.6-mm (1⁄16-inch) disks

Yield: 94% (470 ml)

Infuse with 2 chargers for 2 1⁄2 minutes.

Glo-Sour

2 ounces (60 ml) Turmeric Gin3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice

Flat 3⁄4 ounce (20 ml) simple syrup

3 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

1–2 dashes Rapid Orange Bitters

Shake with ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass.

Makes one 5 1⁄3-ounce(160-ml) shaken drink at15.9% alcohol by volume,8.0% g/100 ml sugar,0.84% acid

LemongrassVodka

300 ml vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

180 grams fresh lemongrass, sliced into disks

Infuse with 2 chargers for 2 minutes.

Yield: 90% (270 ml)

Lemon PepperFizz

58.5 ml Lemongrass Vodka

12 ml clarified lemon juice

18.75 ml simple syrup

Dash Rapid Black Pepper Tincture

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

76 ml filtered water

Mix, chill, carbonate, and serve in a chilled flute.

Makes one 5 1⁄2-ounce(166-ml) carbonated drinkat 14.3% alcohol byvolume, 7.1 g/100 mlsugar, 0.43% acid

Coffee Zacapa

750 ml Ron Zacapa 23 Solera or other aged rum, divided into a 500 ml

portion and a 250 ml portion

100 ml filtered water

100 grams whole fresh coffee beans roasted on the darker side

185 ml whole milk

Infuse with 2 chargers for 1¼ minutes.

Approximate final alcoholby volume: 31%

Yield: Approximately94% (470 ml)

Djer Syrup

400 grams filtered water

400 grams granulated sugar

15 grams djer (grains of Selim), or 9 grams of green cardamom podsand 5 grams black pepper

Blend ingredients together, then strain.

Café Touba

2 ounces (60 ml) Coffee Zacapa1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) Djer Syrup

3 drops saline solution1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) cream (if you have not milk-washed the rum)

Shake with ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass.

Makes one 3 9⁄10-ounce(115-ml) shaken drink at16.1% alcohol by volume,8.0 g/100 ml sugar, 0.39%acid

JalapeñoTequila

45 grams green jalapeño peppers,seeded, deveined, and very thinly

sliced

500 ml blanco tequila (40% alcohol by volume)

Infuse with 2 chargers 1 1⁄2 minutes.

Yield: over 90%

ChocolateVodka

500 ml neutral vodka 40% alcohol by volume neutral vodka

75 grams Valrhona cocoa nibs

Infuse with 2 chargers 1 1⁄2 minutes.

Yield: over 84% (425ml)

Schokozitrone

2 ounces (60 ml) Chocolate Vodka1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lemon juice1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup 1:1

2 dashes Rapid Chocolate Bitters

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Candied ginger

Stir with ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass with candied gingergarnish.

Makes one 4 1⁄3-ounce(128-ml) stirred drink at19.2% alcohol by volume,7.4 g/100 ml sugar, 0.70%acid

Rapid Orange

0.2 grams whole cloves (3 cloves)

2.5 grams green cardamom seeds, removed from pod

2 grams caraway seeds

25 grams dried orange peel (Sevilles preferable)

25 grams dried lemon peel

25 grams dried grapefruit peel Yield: 52% (185 ml)

Bitters 5 grams dried gentian root

2.5 grams quassia bark

350 ml neutral vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

25 grams fresh orange peel (no pith, orange only)

Infuse with 1 charger in simmering water for 20 minutes, then coolbefore venting.

RapidChocolateBitters

3.0 grams mace (3 whole)

350 ml neutral vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

100 grams Valrhona cocoa nibs

1.5 grams dried gentian

1.5 grams quassia bark

Infuse with 2 chargers for 60 minutes.

Yield 85% (298 ml)

Rapid HotPepper Tincture

8 grams red habanero peppers, seeded, deveined, and very finely sliced

52 grams red serrano peppers, seeded, deveined, and very finely sliced

140 grams green jalapeño peppers, seeded, deveined, and very finelysliced

250 ml pure ethanol (200 proof; 195 is fine)

100 ml filtered water

Infuse with 2 chargers for 5 minutes.

Yield: over 90% (315ml)

Rapid BlackPepper Tincture

15 grams Malabar black peppercorns

10 grams Tellicherry black peppercorns

5 grams green peppercorns

3 grams grains of paradise

2 grams cubebs

200 ml neutral vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

Infuse with 2 chargers for 5 minutes.

Yield: 80% (160 ml)

Rapid Hops

250 ml neutral vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

15 grams fresh Simcoe hops Yield: 85% (212 ml)

Tincture Infuse with 2 chargers. If hot, simmer for 30 minutes then chill. If cold,infuse for 30 minutes.

Dual Hot andCold HopsTincture

30 grams fresh Simcoe hops, divided into two 15 gram piles

300 ml neutral vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

Infuse 15 grams hops with one charger, simmer for 30 minutes, cool,and vent. Add additional 15 grams hops, then infuse with 2 chargers anadditional 30 minutes.

Yield: 85% (212 ml)

CucumberMartini

62⁄3 ounces (200 ml) cold gin

12⁄3 ounces (50 ml) cold Dolin Blanc vermouth1⁄3 ounce (10 ml) cold simple syrup

Dash of cold saline solution

2 chilled cucumbers (577 grams)

1 lime

Maldon salt

Celery seeds

All-PurposeSweet-and-Sour

400 ml simple syrup (or 250 grams granulated sugar and 250 grams

filtered water)

400 ml freshly strained lime juice, lemon juice, or lime acid

200 ml filtered water

Healthy pinch of salt

Makes 1 liter

TomatoInfusion Liquid

100 grams granulated sugar

20 grams salt

5 grams coriander seeds

5 grams yellow mustard seeds

5 grams allspice berries

3 grams crushed red pepper (omit if garnishing Jalapeño Tequila)

100 grams filtered water

500 grams white vinegar

BananasJustino

3 peeled ripe bananas (250 grams) per 750 ml liquor

2 ml Pectinex Ultra SP-L

Approximately 32%alcohol by volume ifstarting with 40% alcoholby volume liquor

Dates Justino

187 grams Medjool dates per 750 ml liquor

2 ml Pectinex Ultra SP-L

Additional 250 ml liquor

Alcohol content roughlyunchanged

Red CabbageJustino

400 grams red cabbage dehydrated to 100 grams

500 ml Plymouth gin

1–2 ml Pectinex Ultra SP-L

Alcohol content roughlyunchanged

ApricotsJustino

200 grams dehydrated Blenheim apricots

1 liter liquor

3–4 ml Pectinex Ultra SP-L

250 ml filtered water

Approximately 35%alcohol by volume ifstarting with 40% liquor

PineapplesJustino

200 grams dried pineapple

1 liter liquor

2 ml Pectinex Ultra SP-L

Alcohol content roughlyunchanged

BenjaminFranklin’s MilkPunch

Take 6 quarts of Brandy, and the Rinds of 44 Lemons pared very thin;Steep the Rinds in the Brandy 24 hours; then strain it off. Put to it 4Quarts of Water, 4 large Nutmegs grated, 2 quarts of Lemon Juice, 2pound of double refined Sugar. When the Sugar is dissolv’d, boil 3Quarts of Milk and put to the rest hot as you take it off the Fire, andstir it about. Let it stand two Hours; then run it thro’ a Jelly-bag till it isclear; then bottle it off.

1 liter vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

32 grams Selimbong second-flush Darjeeling tea

250 ml whole milk

Tea Vodka 15 grams 15% citric acid solution or a fat 1 ounce (33 ml) freshlystrained lemon juice

Infuse tea into vodka till quite dark. Strain. While stirring, add vodka tomilk and break with citric acid. Let settle and filter out curds.

Tea Time

2 ounces (60 ml) milk-washed tea-infused vodka1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) honey syrup1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lemon juice

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Shake with ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass.

Makes one 4 3⁄5-ounce(137-ml) drink at 14.9%alcohol by volume, 6.9g/100 ml sugar and 0.66%acid

Dr. J

2 ounces rum3⁄4 ounce lime-strength orange juice

flat 3⁄4 ounce simple syrup

Pinch of salt

Drop of vanilla extract

Shake with ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass.

Makes one 5 1⁄3-ounce(159-ml) drink at 15.0%alcohol by volume, 8g/100 ml sugar, 0.14%acid

Egg-WashingTechnique

750 ml liquor of your choice at 40% alcohol by volume or higher

1 extra-large egg white

1 ounce (30 ml) filtered water

Cognac andCabernet

1 ounce (30 ml) egg white (1 large)

2 ounces (60 ml) Cognac (41% alcohol by volume)

4 ounces (120 ml) cabernet sauvignon (14.5% alcohol by volume)

2 ounces (60 ml) filtered water1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) clarified lemon juice or 6% citric acid solution1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup

4 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

Makes two 4 4⁄5-ounce(145-ml) drinks at 14.5%alcohol by volume, 3.4g/100 ml sugar, 0.54%acid

Chitosan/Gellan

15 grams liquid chitosan solution (2% of the booze amount)

WashingTechnique

750 ml booze

15 grams Kelcogel F low-acyl gellan (2% of the booze amount)

CarbonatedWhiskey Sour

25⁄8 ounces (79 ml) filtered water

13⁄4 ounces (52.5 ml) chitosan/gellan-washed bourbon at (47% alcoholby volume)

5⁄8 ounce (19 ml) simple syrup

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Short 1⁄2 ounce (12 ml) clarified lemon juice (or add the same amountof unclarified lemon juice after you carbonate)

Combine ingredients, chill, and carbonate. Serve in a chilled flute.

Makes one 5 2⁄5-ounce(162.5-ml) drink at 15.2%alcohol by volume, 7.2g/100 ml sugar, 0.44%acid

Peanut Butterand Jelly Vodka

25 ounces (750 ml) vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

120 grams creamy peanut butter

125–200 grams Concord grape jelly

Yield: Variable, between60 and 85% Finishedalcohol by volume:32.5%

PB&J with aBaseball Bat

21⁄2 ounces (75 ml) Peanut Butter and Jelly Vodka (32.5% alcohol by

volume)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) freshly strained lime juice

2 drops saline solution of a pinch of salt

Shake briefly with ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass.

Makes one 4 7⁄10-ounce(140-ml) drink at 17.3%alcohol by volume, 9.0g/100 ml sugar, 0.77%acid

Simple LimeSoda

1 ounce (30 ml) simple syrup3⁄4 ounce (22.5 ml) clarified lime juice or lime acid base

41⁄4 ounces (127.5 ml) filtered water

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Makes 6 ounces (180 ml)at 10.5 g/100 ml sugar,0.75% acid

StrawbunkleSoda

1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup

33⁄4 ounces (112.5 ml) clarified strawberry juice

13⁄4 ounces (52.5 ml) filtered water.

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Combine ingredients, chill, and carbonate.

Makes 6 ounces (180 ml)at 10.1 g/100 ml sugar,0.94% acid

X, Y, or Z andSoda

Short 2 ounces (57 ml) liquor

Fat 31⁄2 ounces (108 ml) filtered water

Combine ingredients, chill, and carbonate. Serve in a chilled flute.

CarbonatedMargarita

Short 2 ounces (58.5 ml) light-bodied, clean tequila like Espolón Blanco(40% alcohol by volume)

Fat 21⁄2 ounces (76 ml) filtered water

Short 1⁄2 ounce (12 ml) clarified lime juice

Short 3⁄4 ounce (18.75 ml) simple syrup

2–5 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt

1 orange twist

Combine ingredients, chill, and carbonate. Serve in a chilled flute withthe twist of orange.

Makes one 5 1⁄2-ounce(165-ml) drink at 14.2%alcohol by volume, 7.1g/100 ml sugar, 0.44%acid

CarbonatedNegroni

1 ounce (30 ml) gin

1 ounce (30 ml) Campari

1 ounce (30 ml) sweet vermouth1⁄4 ounce (7.5 ml) clarified lime juice

21⁄4 ounces (67.5 ml) filtered water

1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

1 grapefruit twist

Combine ingredients, chill, and carbonate. Serve in a chilled flute withthe twist of grapefruit.

Makes one 5 1⁄2-ounce(165-ml) drink at 16%alcohol by volume, 7.3g/100 ml sugar, 0.38%acid

ChampariSpritz

Fat 11⁄2 ounces (48 ml) Campari (24% alcohol by volume, 24% sugar)3⁄8 ounce (11 ml) champagne acid (6% acid)

31⁄8 ounces (94 ml) filtered water

1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Combine ingredients, chill, and carbonate. Serve in a chilled flute.

Makes one 5 1⁄2-ounce(165-ml) drink at 7.2%alcohol by volume, 7.2g/100 ml sugar, 0.44%acid

Gin and Tonic

Full 13⁄4 ounces (53.5 ml) Tanqueray gin (47% alcohol by volume)

Short 1⁄2 ounce (12.5 ml) Quinine Simple Syrup or Cinchona Syrup

Short 3 ounces (87 ml) filtered water

1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt3⁄8 ounce (11.25 ml) clarified lime juice

Combine ingredients, chill, and carbonate. Serve in a chilled flute.

Makes one 5 1⁄2-ounce(165-ml) drink at 15.4%alcohol by volume, 4.9g/100 ml sugar, 0.41%acid

Chartruth

Fat 13⁄4 ounces (54 ml) Green Chartreuse (55% alcohol by volume,

25% sugar)

Short 31⁄4 ounces (97 ml) filtered water

1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Short 1⁄2 ounce (14 ml) clarified lime juice

Combine ingredients, chill, and carbonate. Serve in a chilled flute.

Makes one 5 1⁄2-ounce(165-ml) drink at 18.0%alcohol by volume, 8.3g/100 ml sugar, 0.51%acid

Gin and Juice:Agar-Clarified

Scant 2 ounces (59 ml) Tanqueray gin (47% alcohol by volume)

Short 23⁄4 ounces (80 ml) agar-clarified grapefruit juice

Fat 3⁄4 ounce (26 ml) filtered water (If a slightly sweeter drink isdesired, replace a bar spoon (4 ml) of the water with simple syrup,that will make the drink 6.3% sugar, 1.10% acid)

1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Combine ingredients, chill, and carbonate. Serve in a chilled flute.

Makes one 5 1⁄2-ounce(165-ml) drink at 16.9%alcohol by volume, 5.0g/100 ml sugar, 1.16%acid

Gin and Juice:CentrifugallyClarified

Fat 13⁄4 ounces (55 ml) Tanqueray gin (47% alcohol by volume)

Fat 13⁄4 ounces (55 ml) centrifuge-clarified grapefruit juice

Short 11⁄2 ounces (42 ml) filtered water

Fat 1⁄4 ounce (10 ml) simple syrup

Scant bar spoon (3 ml) champagne acid (30 grams lactic acid and 30grams tartaric acid in 940 grams water)

1–2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Combine ingredients, chill, and carbonate. Serve in a chilled flute.

Makes one 5 1⁄2-ounce(165-ml) drink at 15.8%alcohol by volume, 7.2g/100 ml sugar, 0.91%acid

Granny Smith

5 ounces (150 ml) clarified Granny Smith juice

1 ounce (30 ml) filtered water

Makes 6 ounces (180 ml)

Soda 2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Combine ingredients, chill, and carbonate.

at 10.8 g/100 ml sugar,0.77% acid

HoneycrispRum Shake

2 ounces (60 ml) clean-tasting white rum 40% alcohol by volume

Either short 1⁄2 ounce (12 ml) lime juice, or 0.7 gram malic aciddissolved in 10 ml water and 2 drops saline solution or a pinch ofsalt

3 ounces (90 ml) unclarified Honeycrisp apple juice frozen into three 1-ounce (30-ml) cubes

Shake the ingredients with juice ice and serve in a chilled coupeglass.

Makes one 5 2⁄5-ounce(162-ml) drink at 14.8%alcohol by volume, 7.8g/100 ml sugar, 0.81%acid

KentuckyKernel

13⁄4 ounces (52.5 ml) chitosan/gellan-washed Makers Mark bourbon

45% alcohol by volume

21⁄2 ounces (75 ml) clarified Ashmead’s Kernel juice

1 ounce (30 ml) filtered water

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Mix, chill, carbonate, serve in a chilled flute.

Makes one 5 1⁄4-ounce(157.5-ml) carbonateddrink at 15% alcohol byvolume, 8.6 g/100 mlsugar, approximately0.6% acid

BottledCaramelAppletini

2 ounces (60 ml) vodka (40% alcohol by volume)

¼ ounce (7.5 ml) Dolin Blanc vermouth

1 ounce (30 ml) filtered water

1 ¾ ounces clarified Wickson crabapple juice

1 bar spoon (4 ml) 70-Brix caramel syrup

Dash of orange bitters

2 drops saline solution or a dash of salt

Mix, add to bottle, chill, serve in a chilled coupe glass.

Makes one 5 1⁄5-ounce(155-ml) drink at 16.5%alcohol by volume, 7.2g/100 ml sugar, 0.45%acid

70-BrixCaramel

About 1 ounce (30 ml) filtered water

400 grams granulated sugar

Heat in pan till very dark but not burned. Add 400 ml water to hot pan,remove from heat, and stir till everything is dissolved.

Shakerato withMilk

11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) freshly made espresso cooled down to at least60°C (140°F)

3 ounces (90 ml) whole milk1⁄2 ounce (15ml) simple syrup

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Shake with ice and serve in a chilled glass.

Makes one 6 2⁄3-ounce(197-ml) drink at 0.0%alcohol by volume,4.7g/100 ml sugar, 0.34%acid

BoozyShakerato

11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) freshly made espresso cooled down to 50°C

(122°F)

2 ounces (60 ml) dark rum (40% alcohol by volume)

11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) heavy cream1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Shake with ice and serve in a chilled glass.

Makes one 7 4⁄5-ounce(234-ml) drink at 10.2%alcohol by volume, 3.9g/100 ml sugar, 0.29%acid

BoozyShakerato 2

11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) freshly made espresso cooled down to 50°C

(122°F)

2 ounces (60 ml) dark rum (40% alcohol by volume)1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

31⁄2 ounces (105 ml) whole milk, frozen into ice cubes

Shake liquid ingredients with milk ice and serve in a chilled glass.

Makes one 7 1⁄2-ounce(225-ml) drink at 10.7%alcohol by volume, 4.1g/100 ml sugar, 0.30%acid

NitrousEspresso

11⁄2 ounces (45 ml) espresso

13⁄4 ounces (52.5 ml) vodka at 40% alcohol by volume1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup

11⁄2 ounces (52.5 ml) filtered water

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Mix, chill, carbonate with N 2O, and serve in a chilled flute.

Makes one 5 1⁄2-ounce(165-ml) drink at 12.7%alcohol by volume, 5.6%g/100 ml sugar, 0.41%acid

2 ounces (60 ml) Coffee Zacapa

Makes one 3 9⁄10-ounce

Coffee ZacapaCocktail

1⁄2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup

2 drops saline solution or a pinch of salt

Shake with ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass.

(117-ml) drink at 15.8%alcohol by volume, 7.9%g/100 ml sugar, 0.38%acid

The Best G&TYou Can MusterIf You Can’tMuster Much

Glass from freezer

13⁄4 ounces (52.5 ml) gin from freezer

31⁄4 ounces (97.5 ml) ice-cold fresh tonic water

Squeeze of lime

Ice from freezer

Quinine SimpleSyrup

1 liter (1230 grams) of simple syrup and 0.5 gram of quinine sulfate

USP. Mix and strain to remove possible undissolved quinine.

CinchonaSyrup

20 grams powdered cinchona bark (around 3 tablespoons)

750 ml filtered water

750 grams granulated sugar

Simmer bark in water 5 minutes, cool, strain through coffee filter,redilute to 750 ml, then dissolve in sugar.

Makes 1.2 liters

Tonic WaterTwo Ways

43⁄4 ounces (142.5 ml) Quinine Simple Syrup or Cinchona Syrup

41⁄4 ounces (127.5 ml) clarified lime juice, or premade lime acid, or 5.1grams citric acid and 2.6 grams malic acid and the tiniest pinchsuccinic acid dissolved in 120 ml water

20 drops (1 ml) saline solution or a couple pinches of salt

25 ounces (750 ml) filtered water

Mix, chill, carbonate.

Makes 34 ounces (1021ml) at 8.8 g/100 ml sugar,0.75% acid

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThanks to my wife, Jennifer, who spent an inordinate amount of time beating myrambling, incoherent first drafts into the language we call English, then revising andpolishing the finished book. I have loved her clarity of thought and distaste fornonsense since we first met. Without her I could not write any sort of book anyonewould want to read.

Thanks to my editor at W. W. Norton, Maria Guarnaschelli, who invited me to lunchone day three years ago and decided I was going to write a book. I often hear fromauthor friends that old-school editors don’t exist. I now know that they are wrong. I amextremely fortunate to have had such a passionate, involved, and caring advocate toshepherd this book into existence.

Thanks to:

Nastassia Lopez, for keeping the wheels on the bus.My partners, the inimitable David Chang and Drew Salmon, for believing inBooker and Dax and in me. I am forever grateful.Travis Huggett, for such a fine job on the photography.Mitchell Kohles, for doing a lot of heavy lifting at W. W. Norton.Harold McGee, for the constant inspiration and for his thoughtful review of draftsof this book.James Carpenter, for going through the manuscript with his laser eye for detail.John McGee, Paul Adams, Ariel Johnson, and Don Lee for their input.

And thanks to the people who have inspired me and supported me on my decidedlynon-linear career path, even when my endeavors seemed far-fetched:

My mom and Gerard, my dad, and the whole Addonizio/Arnold clan; Maile,Ridge, and the rest of the Carpenters.Early, Ludwick, Sweeney, and Strauss, who helped foot the bill.Jeffrey Steingarten and Dana Cowin, early supporters who helped me find myplace in the food world.Michael Batterberry, who got me my first real job in the business.Wylie Dufresne, who started me on the road to using new technologies in thekitchen.Nils Noren, with whom I’ve done some of my best work—Skoal!Johnny Iuzzini, from whom I learned a lot when we were knocking aroundtogether.The chefs I worked with at the FCI, and the students in my FCI intern program(with a special shout-out to Mindy Nguyen.)

The talented crew I’ve worked with at Booker and Dax: Piper Kristensen,Tristan Willey, Robby Nelson, Maura McGuigan, and all the bartenders, bar-backs, servers and hosts—you too Ssam crew!

Finally, thank you to all my friends in the cocktail community—you motivate me everyday.

INDEXPage numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use yourdevice’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.Page numbers in italics refer to photographs, charts, and tables. Page numbers in boldface refer to recipes.

abbey ale, in Red-Hot Ale, 187

acetic acid, 59

acids:

acetic, see acetic acidacidity, 33, 58–61, 93, 113, 150, 169, 176, 216, 247, 260, 321, 323, 340ascorbic, see ascorbic acidassessing, 255citric, see citric acidand clarification, 236in cocktail profile analysis, 121–22combinations of, 59in hot drinks, 183ingredient percentages in, 137lactic, see lactic acidmalic, see malic acidphosphoric, see phosphoric acidsuccinic, see succinic acid-sugar ratio, 124, 339, 344–45, 346tartaric, see tartaric acidtemperature and perception of, 124titratable, see titratable acid

“adjusting the gate,” 27

Adrià, Ferran, 191

adsorption, 266

agar:

hydration of, 251, 252measuring of, 151setting of, 252–53tempering of, 252, 252washing with, 256

agar clarification, 329

freeze-thaw, 239–40, 241, 250, 253–54, 253quick, 241, 243, 250, 253, 254, 254

agar rafts, 240

agave syrup, 50, 51, 53, 183, 349

air, in CO2 loss, 300–301, 305

albedo, 34, 248

alcohol:

carbonation of, 295–96, 311, 316, 322as clarifying agent, 348–49foaming properties of, 301pressure for carbonating, 320ratio of water to in carbonated drinks, 323see also ethanol; specific drinks

Alexander, 133

All-Purpose Sweet-and-Sour syrup, 232

allspice berries, 233

in butter syrup, 54, 55

alpha acids in hops (humulones), 216

“-and-soda” drinks, 323

Angostura bitters, 50, 85, 183

in Cliff Old-Fashioned, 109in Manhattan, 86, 104, 155in Manhattans by the Pitcher, 153

anise pod:

in Bananas Justino, 260in Scotch and Coconut, 150

“anomalous expansion of water,” 66–67

antifoaming agents, 300

antioxidants, 165–66

Any Nut Orgeat, 56–57

Aperol, 103

for carbonation, 322

apple brandy, in Red-Hot Cider, 188

applejack, 183

apple juice, 145, 243, 249, 250

clarified, 278, 337, 338–39, 347, 348colors of, 337commercial, 335–36, 338in Granny Smith Soda, 339making of, 336–39, 336

apples, 35, 58, 222, 224, 227, 233, 265, 334–50, 342

for author’s future exploration, 349–50choosing and tasting, 341–43coloration of, 342commercial, 339–40cores and seeds, 338juicing of, 336–39, 336overripe, 343texture of, 341, 342underripe, 341, 342varieties of, 334–35, 337, 341, 343

appletini cocktails, 346

bitters in, 213

apricots:

dried, 260–61

Apricots Justino, 260–61

aquavit, 149, 176, 233

arancia oranges, 175

Ardbeg Scotch, in Scotch and Coconut, 150

Arnold Palmer, 263, 266, 268–69

ascorbic acid (vitamin C), 59, 59, 165, 336, 338, 375

Ashmead’s Kernel apples, 335, 344

in Auto-Justino, 348in Kentucky Kernel, 345

Aspergillus aculeatus, 244

Asphyxiation and liquid nitrogen, 40

astringency, 248

stripping of, 263–66, 268, 271, 272

atmospheric pressure, 196

and boiling, 223distillation, 45–47

Auto-Justino, 348–49, 348

Aviation, 132

Avogadro’s number, 297

Bacardi rum, in Auto-Justino, 348

bacon fat, 283

Bad Ass Muddler (BAM), 29, 29, 168–69

bag-in-box, 304

bag sealing in vacuum machines, 219, 227

ball-lock connectors, 48, 303, 304, 305, 306

bananas, 255, 257

in Bananas Justino, 260

Bananas Justino, 259, 260

BarBoss blender, 36

bar mats, 29, 29, 48, 49, 72

bars (pressure measurement), 20

bar spoons, 48, 101, 363

for stirring, 28, 28volume of, 20, 28, 30

basil, 165, 166, 167

in TBD, 172

beakers, for stirred drinks, 23

beer:

in hot drinks, 183skunky, 216

beer brewing, 43, 216, 304

beer taps (picnic taps), worthless, 314

Bee’s Knees, 133

beet juice in apples, 233

bends (diving disease), 194

bent-helix pokers, 180–81

Between the Sheets, 132

Big Mac McCann carbonator, 314, 315

Bijou, 130

bisphenol A, 309

bittering agents, 210, 210

bitterness, 54, 121, 149, 208, 216, 248, 256, 358, 364, 365, 367, 375, 376

bitter orange (sour orange):

in Flat Leaf, 175in hot drinks, 183

bitters, 85, 113, 198, 348

chocolate, 208, 209, 213in Dates Justino, 260defined, 210in hot drinks, 183ingredient percentages in, 136rapid infused, 108, 187, 188, 198, 200, 209, 210–13in Red-Hot Ale, 187in Red-Hot Cider, 188see also Angostura bitters

bitters bottles, 30, 49

black pepper, in Djer Syrup, 205

black tea vodka, washing of, 265

Blackthorn, 131

blended drinks, 83, 114–20, 122, 141, 258

centrifuge clarification of, 257–59frozen, 141–44, 142, 146, 146structural analysis of, 126, 134–35

Blender Daiquiri:

with ice, 120using freezer, 135

Blender Marg, Blender Margarita, 118, 134

blender-muddling, 165–76

of multiple drinks, 167, 171nitro-muddling vs., 167, 169tips for, 167–68

blenders, 35–36, 48, 49

in chilling, 83, 114heating purees with, 247in making slushies, 141–44power of, 115stick, 57whole frozen fruit in, 146, 146

Blender Whiskey Sour, 134

Blendtec blender, 36

Blenheim apricots, in Apricots Justino, 260–61

Blinker, 131

blood alcohol content (BAC), 295

Blood and Sand, 133

blood oranges, 248

blueberries, 254

Blumenthal, Heston, 238

Blush on apples, 342–43, 342

Bobby Burns, 131

body temperature, 247, 251, 255, 258

boiling:

and bitterness in hops, 216bottles, plastic, deformed by, 309in clarification, 240, 369for distillation, 45in hot drinks, 178, 179, 179, 180of LN, 158–59, 168, 169, 171in low pressure, 223–24, 223, 227

Bombay London dry gin, 370

Booker and Dax (bar), 18, 22, 23, 25, 27, 37, 41, 174, 268, 271

booze washing, 156, 204, 263–82

three techniques for, see chitosan/gellan washing; egg washing; milk washing

Boozy Shakerato, 354, 354

Boozy Shakerato 2, 355, 355

Boston shakers (two-piece), 24, 25–26

bottle, cap, and tank carbonation rig, 302–8, 303

carbonating technique for, 304–8

bottle cappers, 30

Bottled Caramel Appletini, 346–48

bottles:

glass, 48, 198, 309, 362plastic, 22, 152, 153, 163, 302, 303, 304, 305, 308, 309, 362recycling of, 309reusing, 30

bottling, 155, 155, 156, 315, 346

bourbon, 85, 109, 271, 278

in Bananas Justino, 259, 260in Carbonated Whiskey Sour, 282chitosan/gellan washed, 282in Dates Justino, 260egg washed, 272

washing of, 265in whiskey sours, 95, 282

brandy, 183, 265

in Franklin’s milk punch, 267in Pineapples Justino, 261

brandy Alexander, 93

Brandy Crusta, 131–32

Brix measurement, 31–32, 57, 111, 343–44, 346, 347

Brooklyn, 130

Brown Derby, 133

brown sugar syrup, 52

bubbles:

CO2 loss from, 297–303, 305CO2–N2O gas mix for, 294control of, 289on draft, 314formation of, 289–90, 297–98, 356inflation of, 297philosophy of, 288–89size of, 290–91, 294

built drinks, 83, 101, 107–13, 122

rules for, 113structural analysis of, 125, 130

bullshot and gelatin clarification, 240

butter, 283

butter syrup, 54, 55, 56

in Cold Buttered Rum, 55

cabbage, red, in Red Cabbage Justino, 260, 261

cabbage juice, 92

cabernet sauvignon, in Cognac and Cabernet, 275

cacao distillates, 47

Café Touba, 204, 204, 207, 358

caffè shakerato, 353

calories, 20, 78

Campari, 233

in Carbonated Negroni, 325

for carbonation, 322in Champari Spritz, 326in Negronis, 103, 104

camu camu (Myrciaria dubia), as tonic replacer, 375–76

cane syrup, 52

cantaloupes for infusion, 232

capsaisin, 47, 214, 331

cap sealer, 155

caramelization, 183, 185, 347

caramel syrup, in Bottled Caramel Appletini, 346, 347

caraway seeds, 176, 210

in Cucumber Martini, 228, 230in Rapid Orange Bitters, 211

carbonated drinks, 61, 103, 111, 122, 203, 256, 275, 285, 323

chilling of, 160, 162, 163clarification of, 299CO2 in, 288–316, 316cocktails, 320–31dispensing of, 314intoxication from, 295nonalcoholic, 317–19premade, 322rock and roll technique for, 160structural analysis of, 126, 135washing of, 274, 282wines and sake, 320

Carbonated Margarita, 135, 324

Carbonated Negroni, 135, 325, 326

Carbonated Whiskey Sour, 135, 282

carbonation, 278, 288–331

alcoholic drinks for, 295–96, 311, 316, 322bubbles in, see bubbleschoosing drinks for, 316–23clarification and, 299, 338in cocktails, 321in coffee drinks, 352, 356on draft, 314easy reference list for, 315–16equipment for, 48, 289gas for, 42, 288

with iSi whipper, 312, 312, 314–15loss of, 296–301measuring of, 295–96, 296multiple rounds of, 301, 305, 315natural, 320nonalcoholic drinks for, 317–19as a taste and an ingredient, 288–89, 364techniques for, 302–15, 306–7temperature and pressure in, 289–90three C’s of, 298–301, 315water for, 312of wines and sake, 319see also bubbles

carbonator caps, 42–43, 48, 303, 304, 305, 306–7, 309

carbonator rig, 302–4, 303

carbon dioxide (CO2), 40, 41–42, 162, 194, 360

in carbonated drinks, 288–316, 316carbonation level of, 295, 297loss through foaming of, 296–302, 302, 305, 316paraphernalia for, 42–43volumes of, 297

Carbon Dioxide/Nitrous mixing rig, 294, 294, 315

cardamom, 204, 210, 210

in Djer Syrup, 205in Rapid Orange Bitters, 211

Carolina Red June apples, 349

Carpano Antica Formula vermouth, 85

in Ebony, 143, 144in Manhattan, 86, 88, 155in Manhattans by the Pitcher, 153

carrot juice and clarification, 242, 249

Carvone, The, 176

casein, 263, 264, 266, 271

cassis, 265

cast iron pokers, 179

celery seeds, in Cucumber Martini, 228, 230

centrifugal force, 242

centrifuges, 37–38, 37, 38, 48, 81, 261

in clarification, 236, 242–48, 242, 246, 254–56, 257–59, 258, 278, 338, 339

problems with, 242–43safety hazards of, 38, 243for separating nut milks, 56, 263in washing, 263, 264

chalaza, 94

chamber vacuum machines, 45, 48, 190, 219, 219, 223, 255

alternatives to, 230blowing up marshmallows in, 226, 226cleaning of, 224, 224

champagne, 61, 320

aging of, 290–91CO2 levels in, 295CO2 loss in, 296–97sabering of, 292–93, 292, 293

champagne acid, 61

in Champari Spritz, 326in Gin and Juice, Centrifugally Clarified, 331

champagne flutes, 161, 297, 322, 362, 363

Champari Spritz, 326

Champion juicer, 35, 48, 49, 336, 338

Champs-Élysées, 132

chargers, see gas cartridges

Chartruth, 12, 135, 328

Chenango Strawberry apples, 349

cherries, brandied, 189–90

cherry tomatoes:

pickled in bullshot, 240vacuum-infused, 222, 233

chilling:

alternative techniques for, 140–63for bottling, 155in carbonation, 299–300, 305, 312, 314, 372with cryogens, 157–63and dilution, 80–83, 84, 91, 93, 97, 101, 102, 123equilibrium point in, 78–79, 83, 91evolving thought on, 91for large batches of drinks, 159, 163LN in, 40–41, 46, 78, 157–62, 158, 159on the rocks in, 104

for sabering, 292shaking and, 73, 80, 87, 91–93, 97for sodas, 317stirring and, 73, 80, 87, 101–2, 152surface area in, 80–82to temperatures colder than ice, 74–79visual clues to, 160warming problem in, 103–4

china cap strainers, 36, 36

chinois, 34, 36, 36, 167

chirality, 176

chitin, 247

chitosan, 246, 247, 248, 266, 277, 278, 280, 280

chitosan/gellan washing, 266, 278–82, 279, 280, 345, 350

chlorine, 73, 314, 317

chocolate, 208, 209, 213, 315

Chocolate Vodka, 208

in Schokozitrone, 209

cider, 338

apples for, 349commercial, 335–36

cilantro leaf, 370

cinchona bark, 210, 364, 365

in Cinchona Syrup, 368in place of quinine, 367–68

Cinchona Syrup, 368

in Gin and Tonic, 373in Tonic Water Two Ways, 373

cinchonism, 365–66

cinnamon stick, in Red-Hot Cider, 188

citric acid, 58–59, 60, 263, 318, 338, 364, 369, 370

in Coffee Zacapa, 359in Cognac and Cabernet, 275in tea vodka, 268

citrus press, 33–34, 48, 49

citrus vesicle garnish, 245

clarification, 235–61

aesthetics in, 236of alcohol, 244alcohol as agent for, 348–49of carbonated drinks, 299, 321with centrifuge, 236, 237–48, 242, 246, 254–56equipment for, 236; see also centrifugesevaluating ingredients for, 249–51, 251flavor and, 148of juices, 22, 235–36, 243, 322, 336, 337, 338–39, 338, 347, 363, 372, 376reasons for, 235–36texture and, 92, 92theory of, 237–48without centrifuge, 249–54yield in, 241, 242, 244, 246, 248, 249, 250, 257, 259, 329see also filter clarification; gel clarification; gravitational clarification

clarity, in controlling CO2 loss, 298, 299, 315

Classic Daiquiri, 99–100, 100, 134

clear:

cloudy vs., 299colorless vs., 235–36

clear ice, 43, 65–68, 69, 113

how to make, 68–69, 70–71, 72, 73tempering of, 69, 72, 73

Cliff Old-Fashioned, 106, 107, 109–10, 112

Clinebell freezer, 68

Clover Club, 134

cloves, in Rapid Orange Bitters, 211

CMBecker premix soda tap, 314, 315

cobbler (three-piece) shakers, 24

cocktail balance at a glance chart, 128–29

cocktail calculus, 121–36

analysis of cocktail profiles in, 121, 125–36balance chart for, 128–29ingredient percentages table, 136–37structure of different types of drinks, 125–137

Cocktail Kingdom company, 27, 29, 73, 168–69

cocktails:

analysis profiles of, see cocktail calculusauthor’s approach to development of, 333–50carbonated, 320–31

classics, 323comparative alcohol content of, 122draft, 314hot brewed, 360ice chilling of, 74–79ingredients for, 50–61little journeys in, 333–78magic ratio for, 321new techniques and ideas for, 140–331preliminaries for, 17–61rapid infused, 198–209structure of, 125–36traditional, 63–137see also specific types and recipes

cocoa nibs, 193, 196, 208

in Rapid Chocolate Bitters, 213, 213

coconuts, Asian juice, 150, 150

coconut water:

in Bananas Justino, 260in Scotch and Coconut, 150, 150

coffee, 189, 192, 196, 315

cocktails, 273, 351–60drip, 352freshly ground, 204, 204, 205, 359iced, 353–55roasting of, 356, 360

coffee beans, 360

in Coffee Zacapa, 205, 350

coffee carafes for liquid nitrogen, 41

coffee cocktails, 273, 351–60

with espresso, 352–57

coffee filters, 36, 36, 237, 277, 277, 280, 280

coffee infusions, 271

Coffee Zacapa, 204, 205, 358–59

in Café Touba, 206

Coffee Zacapa Cocktail, 359

Cognac, 183

in Kentucky Kernel, 345in Red-Hot Ale, 187

Cognac and Cabernet, 275, 277

Cointreau:

in Blender Marg, 118in Scotch and Coconut, 150in Shaken Margaritas, 115

cold-brew coffee concentrate, 352

cold-burn, 39, 371

Cold Buttered Rum, 55, 55

cold hops tinctures, 216–17

coldness, in controlling CO2 loss, 298, 299–300, 315

cold plate, 314, 315

Colombian rainforest, 375–76

composition, in controlling CO2 loss, 300–301, 315

Concord grape jelly, in Peanut Butter and Jelly Vodka, 285

Condenser for distillation, 45, 46

consistency, 102, 204

in carbonation, 300of temperature, 86through measurement, 18–19, 23, 31

consommé, 237, 240

containers:

for fat washing, 283for LN rock and roll, 159for racking, 242, 249for rapid nitrous infusion, 192see also bottles

coriander seeds, 110, 233

coriander soda, 107

Coriander Syrup, 110, 111

in Cliff Old-Fashioned, 109

Cornelius soda kegs (Corny kegs), 217

Corpse Reviver #2, 132

Cosmopolitan, 133

Cosmopolitan TC (Toby Cecchini), 133

counterfining, 247

CP Kelco corporation, 279

crabapple juice, 242, 335, 337

cranberries and astringency, 265

cranberry infusions, 271

“crazy monkey,” shaking style, 97

cream:

in Boozy Shakerato, 354, 355in Café Touba, 206as texturizer, 93, 204whipped, 191, 312, 315

crema in espresso, 352

crown caps, 155

crushed ice, 43–44, 44, 93

cryogenic phase separator (sintered bronze muffler), 41

cryogens, see dry ice; liquid nitrogen

cubebs, 204

in Rapid Black Pepper Tincture, 215, 215

cucumber juice, 92, 250

foaming of, 300

Cucumber Martini, 219, 223, 228–30, 231

cucumber planks, 229, 229

cucumbers, 370

in Cucumber Martini, 228–30vacuum infusion of, 219, 225, 225, 233

curdling, 94, 269, 271, 271, 358

curry oil, 233

cyanide in apple seeds, 338

daiquiri cocktails, 80, 272

frozen, 142, 146milk washed rum in, 271

Daiquiri (More Lime), 134

Darjeeling tea, second flush, 268

dash, volume of, 20, 30

dasher tops, 29, 48, 49

Dates Justino, 260

dehydration, 260, 261

De La Louisiane, 130

demerara sugar syrup, 52

dewars, liquid nitrogen, 41

dilution, 20, 27, 51

and chilling, 80–83, 84, 91, 93, 97, 101, 102, 123in cocktail profile analysis, 121–22equation for calculating, 123with juice, 145–46minimal, 107stirring and, 152water in, 30, 81–82, 83

distillation, 45–47, 278, 344, 358, 368

of coffee, 358, 360of gin, 370–71vacuum, 331, 331

djer (grains of Selim), 204, 204, 358

in Djer Syrup, 205

Djer Syrup, 205

in Café Touba, 206, 358

Dolin Blanc vermouth:

in Auto-Justino, 348in Bottled Caramel Appletini, 346, 347in Cucumber Martini, 228, 230in Ivory, 143, 144

Dolin dry vermouth, in martinis, 75

Dolsots (hot stone bowls), 179–80

draft, seltzer on, 314, 315

dried fruits, 257, 260–61

Dr. J cocktail, 60, 271

drop, volume of, 20, 30

drug scales, 31, 48

dry ice, 41–42

chilling with, 162–63safety hazards of, 39, 42, 157, 162, 163, 305, 309

dry shake (with egg white), 94, 95

Dufresne, Wylie, 238

Earl Grey MarTEAni, 272

Ebony, 143, 144

and Ivory, 143, 143

“edible cocktails,” 219

eggs, in flips, 177

egg washing, 264, 266, 272–77, 279, 282, 345, 350

alcohol to egg white ratio in, 272–73technique for, 273, 274, 277

egg white drinks, 122

foaming in, 93, 94, 97structural analysis of, 126whiskey sours as, 95, 95–96, 272

egg whites, 264, 266, 272

in Cognac and Cabernet, 275in egg washing, 272–73, 274in gel clarification, 237

Egg White Whiskey Sour, 134

El Bulli (restaurant), 191

elderflower syrup, 218

electrical charges, 247, 266, 278–79

Elijah Craig bourbon, in Cliff Old-Fashioned, 109

emulsification, 352

emulsified syrups, 54, 56

enthalpy, 76–78, 290

entropy, 76–78, 83

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 309

enzymes:

in clarification, 236, 243–44see also Pectinex Ultra SP-L

equipment:

for basic bar kit, 49for making drinks, 22–30for measuring, 21–22, 30shopping lists for, 48

Esopus Spitzenburg apples, 346

Espolón Blanco, in Carbonated Margarita, 324

espresso, 351–60, 351

author’s future experimentation with, 360in Boozy Shakerato, 354in Boozy Shakerato 2, 355in cocktails, 352–57in Nitrous Espresso, 357in Shakerato with Milk, 353

espresso machine, 351, 360

ethanol, 369

as clarifying agent, 348–49in cocktail profile analysis, 121–22difficulty of procuring pure, 214in distillates, 47in Generic Blender Sour, 119percentage in cocktail ingredients of, 136–37and pressure when carbonating, 196in Rapid Hot Pepper Tincture, 214SP-L and, 244

eutectic freezing, 163

evaporation, evaporative cooling, 45–47, 224

exothermic reactions, 290

eyedroppers, 29, 30, 48, 49

Fahrenheit (F), 20

fats, 54, 283

fat washing, 264, 282, 283–86

pioneers of, 283, 285technique for, 285, 285

Fernet Branca, 183

filter clarification, 236, 237

filtration, 73, 314

fining, see wine-fining

fireplace pokers, 177

Fitzgerald, Ryan, juicing prowess, 33

fixed rotor centrifuges, 37

Flat Leaf, The, 175

flavored oils, infusion with, 233

flavor extraction in muddling, 166

flavors:

of apples, 334–35, 341–43, 342clarification and, 248, 338concentration of, 124control through rapid nitrous infusion, 189–97fat washing for adding, 282, 283–86infused into porous solids, 222perception of, 47in red-hot poker drinks, 177, 183selective stripping of, see washing

flips, 177

flocculation in clarification, 247

Flor de Caña white rum:

in Blender Daiquiri, 120in Frozen Daiquiri, 142, 142in TBD, 172

fluffing (carbonation), 305, 309, 320–21, 321

fluid gels, 256, 256

fluorescence and quinine, 364

foam, foaming, 91–94, 97, 267, 268, 273, 274, 305, 311

clogging from, 308, 311, 311CO2 loss through, 296–302, 302, 305, 316in espresso, 352, 357iSi whipper and, 191–92, 357in making apple juice, 336milk as agent for, 315, 353

fobbing (carbonation term), 297–98

FoodSaver, 219

Forsline, Phil, 350

Franklin, Benjamin, milk punch recipe of, 267

Freeman, Eben, 73, 283

free-pour technique, 18–29

freezers:

alternative chilling techniques using, 140–51in fat washing, 283ice making in, 66, 68–69, 68, 73in making juice shakes, 145–50in making slushies, 141–44

in making stirred drinks en masse, 152–56

freeze-thaw clarification, 240

agar, 239–40, 241, 250, 253–54, 253gelatin, 238–39, 239, 240, 369inconsistent processing in, 240, 240releasing and thawing techniques for, 253–54tips for, 253

freezing point:

of beverages, 299temperatures below, 74–79of water, 67, 163

French Culinary Institute, New York, 219

Fresh Lime Gimlet, 132

Frostbite and liquid nitrogen, 159

Frozen Daiquiri, 142, 142

frozen drinks, 141–50, 340

fructose, 50, 51, 183

fruit, frozen, 146

fruit juices, 32

frozen, 340straining of, 36sugar content of, 57as sweeteners, 50techniques for making, 33–35, 33

fruit peels:

garnishing technique, 109, 110in Rapid Orange Bitters, 210, 211removing pith with enzymes, 248to drop or not to drop in drink, 110

fruit salad, alcoholic, 232, 233

Fundamental Law of Traditional Cocktails, 84, 87, 123

fungi, 244, 247, 266

Gala apples, 344

garnishes, 28, 85, 153, 218–34, 245, 248

gas cartridges (chargers), 42, 227, 230

CO2, 191, 217, 312iSi whipper pressure control through, 196large tanks vs., 303

N2O, 191, 192, 195, 217, 312, 356, 357

gas tanks:

for CO2, 43, 48, 303, 303for N2O, 294safety hazards of, 303sizing of, 303

gelatin:

agar, vs., 239–40freeze-thaw clarification with, 236, 237–41, 244, 248in washing, 264, 266

gelation, see gel clarification

gel clarification (gelation), 236, 237–41, 244, 248

gellan, 277, 279, 280, 280

see also chitosan/gellan washing

gel rafts, 237, 238–39, 241

Generic Blender Sour, 119

Geneva, N.Y., U.S. apple collection in, 334–35, 344

genever, in Apricots Justino, 261

gentian root, 210, 210

in Rapid Chocolate Bitters, 213, 213in Rapid Orange Bitters, 211

gin, 166, 219, 225, 233, 245, 251, 321, 349

in Apricots Justino, 261in Carbonated Negroni, 325for carbonation, 322in Cucumber Martini, 228, 230distillation of, 370–71Earl-Grey infused, 272fat washing of, 285flavored, 370in Gin and Juice, 329in Gin and Tonic, 361lime and, 369–70in martinis, 75in muddling, 165in Negronis, 103, 104and tonic, 135, 236, 321, 321turmeric infused into, 192

Gin and Juice, 321, 329

Agar-Clarified, 135, 329, 331Centrifugally Clarified, 135, 321, 331pouring of, 330

Gin and Tonic (G&T), 234, 236, 256, 321, 321, 327, 329, 361–73

bottle-strength, 371–72large batches of, 372structural analysis of, 135tonic replacers for, 375–76traditional (no-tech) methods for, 362–63, 363

ginger, 194, 243, 251

in Schokozitrone, 209

glasses:

champagne flutes, 161, 297, 322, 362, 363chilled, 42, 109, 160–62, 161, 322, 372in CO2 loss, 297for G&T, 362salt-rimmed, 114, 149, 233in shakers, 25–26for stirred drinks, 22–23, 23

glögg, 177

Glo-Sour, 198, 200, 211

Gloves and turmeric, 198, 201

glucose, 50

gobdol bibimbop, 179

Gold Rush, 133

graduated cylinders, 21–22, 21, 48, 97, 316

grains of paradise, in Rapid Black Pepper Tincture, 215, 215

grains of Selim, see djer

grams, 30

Granny Smith apples, 337, 339, 343–44

Granny Smith Soda (Clarified), 339

grapefruit juice, 100, 145, 215, 240, 249, 251, 255, 256

clarified, 236, 239, 243fluid gel, 256, 256in Gin and Juice, 329, 331in Habanero-n-Juice, 331in Shaken Drake, 149

grapefruits, 35, 58, 245, 248, 329

gravitational clarification, 237, 241–48

gravy separator, 283

gray dog, 278

Green Chartreuse, in Chartruth, 328

green peppercorns, in Rapid Black Pepper Tincture, 215, 215

ground meat, in gel clarification, 237

Guilibert, Cliff, 107

gum arabic, 54, 55

gushing (in carbonation), 297–98, 316

habanero gin, 331, 331

Habanero-n-Juice, 331

habanero peppers, 47

in habanero vodka and gin, 331in Rapid Hot Pepper Tincture, 214

habanero vodka, in Habanero-n-Juice, 331

hand press juicers, 33–34, 48, 49

Hanky Panky, 131

hard apple cider, in Red-Hot Cider, 188

hard cider, 335

Hatsuyuki ice shaver, 44, 45

hawthorn strainers, 26–27, 26, 27, 48, 96, 167, 171

headspace, 312, 346

in carbonation, 289–90, 301, 308, 316

heat:

in agar clarification, 252enthalpy, entropy and, 76–79generated by blenders, 247, 258in infusion, 210

heating elements, 180

heat of fusion, 78

Hellfire bitters, in Blender Marg, 118

Hembing Kümmel liqueur, in Shaken Drake, 149

hemicellulose, 243–44

Hemingway Daiquiri, 99, 100, 100, 133

Hendrick’s gin, in Bananas Justino, 260

Henry’s law, 289

herbs, 27, 31, 210, 364

muddling of, 165–76, 171, 265

Hibiki Japanese whiskey, 109

high-acyl gellan (Kelcogel LT100), 279

high-temperature cartridge heater, 181

honey, 50, 50, 52–53

Honeycrisp apples, 337, 340

Honeycrisp Rum Shake (Unclarified), 340

honeydews, 232, 257

Honeysuckle, 134

honey syrup, 32, 50, 93

how to make, 53, 268in Tea Time, 269

hops, 183

hot and cold infused, 216–17in Rapid Hops Tincture, 216–17

hot drinks, 177–87

flavor profiles for, 183ignited, 180–83innovation in, 180–82safety hazards from, 179–80, 182serving of, 182–83traditional, 177, 179

hot hops tinctures, 216–17

hothouse cucumbers, 228–29

hot rocks, 179–80, 179

humulones (alpha acids) in hops, 216

hydrocolloids, 30–31, 247, 250

in washing, 264

hydrocolloid thickener, 246

hydrogen ions, 58

Ibis tower (for seltzer), 315

ice:

in blocks, 44, 70–71in built drinks, 110, 113clear, see clear icecloudy, 66, 68, 73in cocktails, 65–89, 363crushing of, 43–44, 44, 48crystals, 27, 299, 305dry, see dry icefreezer vs. lake, 65–66, 68and holdback, 82Manhattans in experiment with, 87–88, 89melting of, 65–67, 76–79science of formation of, 66–68in serving rounds of drinks, 87and shaken drinks, 91–93, 97, 97snapping the water off, 83, 93, 101and stirred drinks, 101storage of, 30superchilled, 81thermodynamics of chilling with, 76–79, 83tools for, 43–44, 44

ice buckets, 30, 48

ice carving, 66, 68, 72

ice chippers, 44

ice crystals, in carbonated drinks, 299, 305

ice-cube molds, 43, 48, 49, 73

ice cubes:

and foam affected by size, 97, 97in freezer, 68, 73importance of rocks, 110large, 43, 49, 73, 83, 93, 97, 104, 110, 112, 113, 260made of juice, 145–46, 147, 149, 149, 150, 260milk, 355, 355scoring and cutting, 71, 72, 72size and shape of, 73surface area of, 65–66, 65, 80–82

iced espresso, 353–55

alcoholic, 354, 355

iced tea, 263

icehouses, 65

ice mallets, 43, 44

ice picks, 43, 44, 48, 49, 72

ice shavers, 44, 48, 116, 116

ice wells, 30

Igloo cooler, 48, 53, 68, 70

immersion circulator, 163

immersion heaters, 180–81

Improved Whiskey Cocktail, 130

Incoloy, 181

infused liquids, using vacuum machine for, 227

infused solids, 190, 193–94, 218, 222–23, 226

infusion:

as alternative to espresso, 358equipment for, 45gas for, 42into gin, 375nitrous, see rapid nitrous infusionstraining in, 36traditional, 190, 191as two-way process, 189–90, 218, 227vacuum, 218–34

intoxication, from carbonated drinks, 295

iSi cream whippers, 48, 49, 212

carbonation using, 42–43, 312, 315design and uses of, 191–92making Coffee Zacapa in, 359making Cucumber Martini with, 230, 231making Nitrous Espresso in, 356, 357pressure control in, 195–96in rapid nitrous infusion, 190–217safety hazards from, 196scaling up from, 217troubleshooting examination of, 192unclogging the valve of, 193, 193, 197in vacuum infusion, 219

isinglass, 266

isohumulones in hops, 216

isomerization in hops, 216

Ivory, Ebony and, 143, 143

Jack Rose, 132

Jägermeister, 183

jalapeño peppers:

in Jalapeño Tequila, 207, 207in Rapid Hot Pepper Tincture, 214

Jalapeño Tequila, 207, 207, 233

in Strawberry Bandito, 147

Japanese mixing cup, 23

Japanese whiskey, in Dates Justino, 260

jiggers, 20, 21, 21, 48, 51, 362

joules, 20, 78

juicers, 33–35, 49, 59, 338

juices, ingredient percentages in, 136–37

juice shakes, 145–50, 160, 340, 355

julep strainers, 26, 26, 27, 48

juniper, 370

Justinos, 257–59, 258, 348–49

Kazakhstan, apples from, 350

Kelcogel F (low-acyl gellan), 279, 280

Kelcogel LT100 (high-acyl gellan), 279

Kentucky Kernel, 344, 345

kieselsol, 246, 247, 248, 250, 255, 266

Kirschenbaum, Kent, 243

kitchen strainers, 36

Klemm, Eben, 91

knives:

paring, 29, 30, 48for sabering, 292–93serrated, 71, 72slicing, 43, 48, 72, 341

Kristensen, Piper, 268

kumquats, 248

lactic acid, 59, 61

Laird’s Bottled in Bond apple brandy, in Red-Hot Cider, 188

lake ice, 65–68

La Puritita mezcal:

in Blended Marg, 118in Spanish Chris, 174

Last Word, 131

lead, in water, 73

Le Châtelier, Henry Louis, 290

Le Châtelier’s principle, 290

Lee, Don, 34, 58, 283

legalities:

in alcohol distillation, 47, 278, 344of quinine, 365, 367

Leidenfrost effect, 39–40, 39, 178, 179

lemonade, 263

lemongrass, 194

chopped, 202in Lemongrass Vodka, 203

Lemongrass Vodka, in Lemon Pepper Fizz, 203

Lemon Hart rum, 119

lemon juice, 33–34, 272, 343

acidity of, 53, 58–59, 113, 165in All-Purpose Sweet-and-Sour, 232in Carbonated Whiskey Sour, 282clarification of, 250, 282, 322in Coffee Zacapa, 359in Cognac and Cabernet, 275in Ebony, 143, 144in hot drinks, 183in Lemon Pepper Fizz, 203in Red-Hot Ale, 187in Red-Hot Cider, 188in Rittenhouse Blender Sour, 120in Schokozitrone, 209in Scotch and Coconut, 150in Tea Time, 269in tea vodka, 268as texturizer, 92in whiskey sours, 95, 282

Lemon Pepper Fizz, 203, 215

lemons, 267, 338, 369

lettuce, 167–68

Lewis bag, 43–44, 44, 48

Liger-Belair, Gerard, 296

Lillet Blanc, 234

lime acid, 60, 281, 370, 372

in All-Purpose Wet-and-Sour, 232in Simple Lime Soda, 318in Tonic Water Two Ways, 373

lime acid orange, 60

lime juice, 33–34, 58, 343, 370, 372

acidity of, 58–59, 113, 165, 321in All-Purpose Sweet-and-Sour, 232in Blender Daiquiri, 120in Blender Marg, 118in Carbonated Margarita, 324in Chartruth, 328clarification of, 236, 240, 241, 243, 246, 247, 250, 251, 278, 322, 323, 363, 372in Cold Buttered Rum, 55in daiquiris, 97, 98, 99, 271in Flat Leaf, 175in Frozen Daiquiri, 142in Generic Blender Sour, 119in Gin and Tonic, 327, 363, 371, 373in Honeycrisp Rum Shake, 340in hot drinks, 183in Ivory, 143, 144in Peanut Butter and Jelly with a Baseball Bat, 286in Shaken Margarita, 115in Simple Lime Soda, 318in Spanish Chris, 174in Strawberry Bandito, 147in TBD, 172as texturizer, 92, 92in Tonic Water Two Ways, 374in Turmeric Gin, 200

limes:

in Bananas Justino, 260in Cucumber Martini, 228, 230gin and, 369–70in Gin and Tonic, 359, 363

Linie aquavit, in Carvone, 176

liqueurs, 50, 51, 183

for carbonation, 322

for hot drinks, 183ingredient percentages in, 136

Liquid Bread company, 42–43, 48

liquid infusions, 190

liquid nitrogen (LN; LN2), 36, 39–44, 39, 48, 171, 372

in bottling, 155, 155, 346in chilling of glasses, 160–62, 161, 322chilling with, 40–41, 46, 78, 157–62, 158, 159, 245, 248dispensing of, 41, 41in muddling, see nitro-muddlingrock and roll technique for, 158, 159–60safety hazards of, 39–41, 157–61, 168, 168, 169, 171, 305

liquid nitrogen condenser, 369

liquors:

carbonating of, 289clarification of, 244, 257–59essential, 50for hot drinks, 183in muddling, 165–66rapid infused, 198–209selective flavor stripping of, see booze washingsee also specific liquors

Lodi apples, 349

lovage, 167

in Flat Leaf, 175

low-acyl gellan (Kelcogel F), 279, 280

Luxardo Maraschino:

in Hemingway Daiquiri, 100in Spanish Chris, 174

mace, in Rapid Chocolate Bitters, 213, 213

McGee, Harold, 334, 350

magnesium oxide insulation, 181

Makers Mark bourbon, in Kentucky Kernel, 345

Malabar black peppercorns, in Rapid Black Pepper Tincture, 215, 215

malaria, quinine and, 364–66

malic acid, 58–59, 60, 61, 271, 318, 343, 370, 373

in Honeycrisp Rum Shake, 340

malolactic fermentation, 61

Manhattan, 85

bottling of, 155, 155horrible carbonated, 323ice languishing experiment for, 87–88, 89, 91Negroni vs., 101–5, 195Rittenhouse rye in, 104stirring techniques for, 84–86

Manhattans by the Pitcher, 152, 152, 153, 153

Manhattan Special (soda), 356

Manhattan with Bourbon, 131

Manhattan with Rye, 130

maple syrup, 53

in Shaken Drake, 149

Margarita, 132

blender, 114, 118carbonating, 323, 324shaken, 53, 114, 115

marshmallows, in vacuum machine, 226, 226

Martinez, 131

martini cocktails:

ice function in, 75, 78–79, 83practice in stirring, 75, 85served up, 103–4

Mason, Sam, 283

massaging the sack (in clarification), 254

alternative to, 255

masticating juicers, 338

MBT (3–methylbut-2–ene-1–thiol skunky compound in beer), 216

measurement:

bartender, 316of carbonation, 295–96, 296in cocktail calculus, 122equipment for, 21–22importance of, 18–20, 255for recipe adjustments, 323of sugar, 53of sugar content, 31–32, 57see also specific instruments

measurement units, 20

meat:

ground, 237stocks, 238, 240

Medjool dates, 259

in Dates Justino, 260

melons, for vacuum infusion, 232

meltwater, 80–81, 112

metric weight, 20

Metrokane crank-style ice crusher, 44

mezcal, 118, 174, 213

micropipettes, 22, 22, 48, 255

microstates (in chemistry), 77

milk:

in Boozy Shakerato, 354in Boozy Shakerato 2, 355, 355in Coffee Zacapa, 205, 359as foaming agent, 315, 353in Shakerato with Milk, 353in tea vodka, 268as texturizer, 93, 315, 353, 358

milk punch, traditional, 267

milk washing, 204–6, 206, 263, 266, 267–71, 271, 272, 273, 350, 358

mint, 166, 167

in Carvone, 176

misters, 29

mixing cups, 22–23

modified spirits, ingredient percentages in, 137

mojitos, 218

molasses, 52

mole (chemistry), 297

Mourides (Senagalese Muslim brotherhood), 204

muddlers, 29, 48, 165, 165, 168–69, 168, 245

muddling, in blender, see blender-muddling

muscatel (tea aroma), 268

mustard seeds, 233

naringin (in greapefruit), 256, 256

National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR), 309

Negroni, 103, 104, 131

carbonated, 323Manhattan vs., 101–5, 105

taste versus temperature, 104

up vs. on the rocks, 103–4, 103

Nelson, Robby, 271

Newtown Pippin apples, 346

nitrogen cavitation, 194

nitrogen gas (N2), and LN, 29, 40, 158

nitro-muddled rose cocktail, 166, 167

nitro-muddling, 27, 29, 165–76, 166, 245, 265

blender-muddling vs., 167, 169steps in, 171tips for, 168–71

Nitrous Espresso, 357

nitrous oxide (N2O; laughing gas), 42, 190, 288, 315, 356

safety hazards of, 217, 294

Noren, Nils, 150, 177

Novozymes, 246

nucleation, nucleation sites, 67–68, 215, 297–98, 298, 300, 317, 363

nut milk-57, 56, 56, 57

nut oils, 56

Nutrifaster juicer, 35

oils, in fat washing, 283

Old-Fashioned, 107–13, 108, 130

Old Pal, 131Old School cocktail (from WD-50), 285old school gels, 237

olive oil, fat washing with, 283, 285

Ommegang Abbey Ale, in Red-Hot Ale, 187

orange bitters, in Bottled Caramel Appletini, 347

orange juice, 248, 248, 249, 251, 271

in Rittenhouse Blender Sour, 120

oranges, 35, 58, 60, 370

blood, 245, 248

OrangeX press, 35

Orangina, 299

orgeats, 56–57

osmosis, 223–24

ounces, use of term, 20, 21

overcarbonation, 289

overchilling, 40–41, 159–60, 160, 163, 299, 320, 371

overinfusion, 204

oxidation, 260, 336, 336, 338

Palomino, Tona, 283, 285

Parisian shaker, 24, 25

parsley, in Flat Leaf, 175

pasteurization, of apple juice, 335

patulin, 336

peaches, clarification, 254

peanut butter, 283

Peanut Butter and Jelly Vodka, 285

Peanut Butter and Jelly with a Baseball Bat, 285–86, 287

Peanut Butter Vodka, 286

pears:

clarifying, 249infusing, 218, 222, 232, 233

pebble ice, 44

pecan bourbon sour, 57

pecans, 56, 57

pectin, 92, 146, 211, 243–44, 246, 248, 348, 349

Pectinex Ultra SP-L (SP-L), 211, 212, 242, 243–48, 243, 244, 246, 249, 250, 254–55, 257, 257

and apple juice, 336, 337, 339nonclarification cocktail uses for, 248pretreating with, 250–51

resistance to, 246–47

Pegu Club (drink), 131

Pegu Club (bar), 272

Pellets (in centrifuge), 242, 246

Pépin, Jacques, 152

peppercorns, 215, 215

peppers, 194, 207, 214

slicing, seeding, and deveining of, 207, 214

pH levels, 244, 246–47, 271

pH meters, 33, 343

phosphoric acid, 22, 59

pickling, vacuum infusion vs., 222–23

pineapple core garnishes, 218, 218, 234

pineapples, dried, 261

Pineapples Justino, 261

pineapple spears, vacuum-infused, 225, 234, 234

Pink Lady, 134

pint glasses, 161, 182

Pisco Sour, 134

plums, clarification, 248, 254

Plymouth gin, 346

in Red Cabbage Justino, 260in Turmeric Gin, 200

Poire Williams infused pears, 233

polydimethylsiloxane, 300

polyethylene terephthalate (PET; PETE), bottles made of, 309

polyphenol oxidases (PPOs), in muddling, 165–66, 165, 167, 265–66

polyphenols, as targets of washing, 264, 265–66, 271, 272, 279

polysaccharides, 92, 243–44, 246, 246, 266, 278

polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), bottles made of, 309

pomegranates, juicing, 35

pomelos, suprêming, 244

porosity, 219, 222

potassium chloride (KCl), 163

pouring:

of carbonated drinks, 305, 307, 322from centrifuge, 255of champagne, 296–97importance of technique in, 82of multiple drinks at once, 27, 27, 328of shaved ice drinks, 117of tonic water, 362

premix soda (as opposed to bag in box), 304

pressure:

in brewing espresso, 352bubbles and, 289–90, 316gas regulators for, 303–4LN under, 41measurement of, 20in rapid nitrous infusions, 189–97temperature and, 223–24, 295–97, 299–300, 314, 316in vacuum machines, 223–24, 223whippers and, 42

pressure chart, for iSi whipper, 195

pressure gauges, 303

pressure regulators, 43, 48, 303–4, 303

proline-rich proteins (PRPs), 264

protein binding, 266

psi (pounds per square inch), 20

for CO2, 43for LN, 41

pucks,

in centrifuging, 242, 242, 255, 259, 261in fat washing, 283

purees:

camu camu, 376clarification of, 236, 243, 250strawberry, 242, 250, 250, 251, 254, 349

quassia bark, 210, 210

in Rapid Chocolate Bitters, 213, 213in Rapid Orange Bitters, 211

quick agar clarification, 241, 243, 250, 253, 254, 254

quinine:

quinine sulfate, 22, 210, 364–67, 372

in Quinine Simple Syrup, 367safety hazards of, 364–66, 367sources of, 369

Quinine Simple Syrup, 54, 366, 367

in Gin and Tonic, 327, 373in Tonic Water Two Ways, 373

racking:

clarification through, 242, 249, 250reverse with separatory funnel, 248

rafts, 239, 253

agar, 240gelatin, 237, 238–39, 241

Rancilio espresso machine, 351

Randall FX fridge/freezers, 44–45, 155, 305, 346, 372

rapid bitters, 108, 187, 188, 198, 200, 209, 210–13

Rapid Black Pepper Tincture, 215, 215

in Lemon Pepper Fizz, 203, 215

Rapid Chocolate Bitters, 213, 213

in Schokozitrone, 209

Rapid Hops Tincture, 216–17

Rapid Hot Pepper Tincture, 214, 214

rapid nitrous infusion, 197–217, 218, 230, 358

in bitters and tinctures, 210–17choosing porous solids for, 193–94controlling variables in, 193–97equipment for, 192; see also iSi cream whippersin liquors and cocktails, 198–209pressure in, 189–97solid-to-liquid ratios in, 194technique of, 192–93

Rapid Orange Bitters, 198, 210, 211–12, 212

in Glo-Sour, 200, 211in Red-Hot Ale, 187in Red-Hot Cider, 188in Bottled Caramel Appletini, 347

rapid tinctures, 214–17

raspberries, clarification, 250, 251

recipe list, 383–96

recipes, importance of, 19–20

Red Cabbage Justino, 260, 312

Red-Hot Ale, poker and pan style, 187

Red-Hot Cider, poker and pan style, 188

red-hot pokers, 45, 48, 177–87, 180, 181

alternative options to, 184, 184–85innovation in, 180–82technique for, 182traditional, 177, 179

redistillation, 278, 331, 344

red pepper, 110, 233

refractive index, 31

refractometers, 31–33, 31, 48, 57, 111, 343, 347

refrigeration, 44–45

regular simple syrup, 51–52

regulators, gas, 303

remouillage, remmi (rewetting), 261

reverse osmosis system, 73

rich simple syrup, 51–52

Rittenhouse Blender Sour, 120

Rittenhouse rye, 85

in Manhattan, 86, 88, 155in Manhattans by the Pitcher, 153in Rittenhouse Blender Sour, 120

Rob Roy, 139

rock and roll technique, 158, 159–60

rocks glasses, 161

Ron Zacapa 23 Solera rum, 204

in Coffee Zacapa, 205, 359

room temperature, 194, 251, 297, 314, 369

roses, freezing of, 166, 167

rotary evaporators (rotovaps), 45–47, 46, 47, 48, 278, 331, 331, 344, 369, 371–72

rotors (centrifuge), 37–38

rum, 183, 204, 205, 225, 234

in Bananas Justino, 260in Boozy Shakerato, 354in Boozy Shakerato 2, 355buttered, 54, 55in Coffee Zacapa, 358–59in daiquiris, 99–100milk washed, 205, 207in Pineapples Justino, 261spiced, 55

Rusty Nail, 130

rye whiskey, 85, 271

in whiskey sours, 95

sabering technique, 292–93, 292, 293

safety hazards of, 292

safety hazards:

from centrifuges, 38, 243of CO2 tanks, 303from dry ice, 39, 42, 157, 162, 163, 305, 309from eggs, 94from hot drinks, 182from hot rocks, 179–80in iSi whippers, 196from LN, 39–41, 157–61, 168, 168, 169, 171, 305from N2O, 217, 294of quinine, 365–66, 367of sabering champagne, 292

Sailor Jerry rum, in Cold Buttered Rum, 55

sake, carbonated, 320

salad spinners, 82, 254, 255

saline solution, 49, 61, 61

salmonella, 94

salt, 61

as saline solution, 49, 61, 61eutectic points of, 163in lowering freezing point, 79, 155, 156, 163, 346on rim, 114, 149, 233

salt apples, 349

Saunders, Audrey, 272

savory shots, 240

scales, 30–31, 48

schisandra berries (Schisandra chinesis), as tonic replacer, 375

Schokozitrone, 208, 209, 213

Scotch:

in Dates Justino, 260washed, 279

Scotch and Coconut, 150, 150

Selimbong second-flush Darjeeling tea, in tea vodka, 268

seltzer, 216

carbonation levels of, 295on draft, 314, 315in foam test, 92tonic vs., 364water quality for, 312

Senegal, 204, 365

separation by density, see gravitational clarification

separatory funnel (sep funnel), 248, 283, 285

serrano peppers, in Rapid Hot Pepper Tincture, 214

sesame oil, 283

setting gels, 236, 237

settling, clarification through, 242, 249

“set of tins,” 26

Sevilles (oranges), 175

Shaken Drake, 149, 149

shaken drinks, 91–100, 114, 122, 152, 267, 285, 321, 338–39

coffee in, 352, 353–55equipment for, 22, 24, 25–26, 48frozen juice in, 145–46, 149, 150ice in, 73, 80, 87milk washing for, 273after muddling, 167, 169shaking technique for, 91, 97–98, 98straining techniques for, 99structural analysis of, 125–26, 131–34temperature for, 50–51, 84see also specific cocktails

Shaken Margarita, The, 115

Shakerato with Milk, 353

shakers, types of, 23, 25–26

shaking tins (metal shaker sets), 23, 23, 24, 25–26, 48, 91, 93, 166

“breaking” of (separating), 24, 26, 94, 98in frozen drinks, 145for nitro-muddling, 168, 171stirring in, 102techniques for, 98

“shaking to completion,” (juice shake technique), 145

shaved ice, 44, 101, 116

drinks, 114, 117

“short ounce,” 20

Sidecar, 132

Simcoe hops, in Rapid Hops Tincture, 216–17, 217

Simple Lime Soda, 318

simple syrup, 51

how to make, 52in carbonated drinks, 323in Quinine Simple Syrup, 366storage of, 52sugar to water ratio in, 30–31, 51–52versus granulated sugar in built drinks, 107

sintered bronze muffler (cryogenic phase separator), 41

skunking (in beer), 216

slug (unit of mass), 20

slurpees, 141

slushies, 141–44

Smith gas mixer, 294

Snoopy Sno-Cone machine, 44, 116

soda kegs, 304

sodas, 111, 317

carbonation levels of, 295on draft, 314

soda siphons, 42

Sodastream, carbonating with, 308–11, 311, 316, 321, 363

soldering copper (as red hot poker), 177, 178, 179, 184

solids:

for rapid nitrous infusion, 193–94in vacuum infusion, 218, 222–23, 226

Southside, 133

Spanish Chris, 174

specific heat, 78

speed-pour bottle tops, 19

spitters (apples), 349–50

SP-L, see Pectinex Ultra SP-L

staining, from turmeric, 198, 201

standard temperature and pressure (STP), 297

starch (in clarification), 246, 255, 257

Stayman Winesap apples, 337

stemmed glasses, 161

stick blenders, 57

stirred drinks, 101–5, 122

bottling of, 155clarification and, 338egg washing for, 273equipment for, 22–23, 23, 28high alcohol level in, 102ice in, 73, 80, 87making large quantities of, 152–56making multiple, 101structural analysis of, 125, 130, 131technique for, 28, 75temperature for, 50, 84up vs. on the rocks, 103–4vessels for, 102see also specific cocktails

stir rods, 112

strainers, 26–27, 26, 27, 36, 48, 94

for rapid nitrous infusion, 192

straining, 25, 34, 56, 255, 263, 336, 339, 366

of coffee, 204of juices, 92after muddling, 166, 167, 169, 171techniques for, 99

straining bags, 36

strawberries:

for infusion, 222juicing of, 37, 47in Strawberry Bandito, 147

Strawberry Bandito, 147, 147

strawberry juice, 145, 240

in Strawberry Bandito, 147in Strawbunkle Soda, 319

strawberry puree, 242, 250, 250, 251, 254, 349

Strawbunkle Soda, 319

sublimation, 162

succinic acid, 58, 60, 370, 373

sucrose, 31, 50, 51

sugar, 30, 50, 321

-acid ratio, 124, 343–44, 371added to spirits, 119at the bar, 51–54in cocktail profile analysis, 121–22and concentration, 51in Djer Syrup, 205and freezing, 141and heat, 183pan burning of, 184, 184–85in sodas, 317superfine, 52syrup, see simple syruptemperature in perception of, 123–24

sugar content, measurement of, 31–32, 57

sulfuring, 260

Suncrisp apples, 337

Sunkist electric juicer, 34

superbags, 37

supercooling, of ice, 67

superwatermelons, 232

suprêmes, 244, 245, 248

suspensions, 235, 237, 241

sweet cider, 335–36, 338

sweeteners, 50–54

ingredient percentages in, 137see also specific sweetening agents

sweetness, percentage in cocktail ingredients of, 136–37

swinging-bucket centrifuges, 37–38, 37, 38

syneresis, 237

Tales of the Cocktail convention, 34, 91

tamarind seeds, 146

Tanqueray:

in Gin and juice, 329, 331in Gin and Tonic, 327, 370–72, 373

tannins, 265, 275, 349–50

Taprite CO2 regulator, 303

tarragon, in Spanish Chris, 174

tartaric acid, 59, 61

tasting, importance of, 18–20

TBD: Thai Basil Daiquiri, 172

tea cocktails, 268–69, 272, 273

tea cups, 182–83

tea strainers, 26, 27, 34, 94, 96, 166, 169, 171, 171

Tea Time, 268–69

tea vodka, 268

in Tea Time, 269

Telephone Brand agar-agar, 250, 250

Tellicherry black peppercorns, in Rapid Black Pepper Tincture, 215, 215

temperature:

bubbles and, 289–90, 356cocktails compared for, 122–24freezer, 140, 141for gin and tonic, 371–72heat vs., 76–77for igniting drinks, 180–81importance of, 23, 44–45, 104–5, 105, 112lower than freezing point of water, 76–79, 83measurement of, 20pressure and, 223–24, 295–97, 299–300, 314, 316in rapid nitrous infusion, 194

SP-L and, 247sweetness and, 50–51for vacuum infusion, 223–24

tequila, 53, 118, 213

in Carbonated Margarita, 324carbonation of, 322jalapeño-infused, 147, 240in Jalapeño Tequila, 207in Shaken Margarita, 115

texture:

of apples for cocktails, 341, 342carbonation for, 352, 356clarification and, 236damage to, 223in espresso drinks, 352–58of gellan, 279milk as agent for, 93, 315, 353, 358milk washing and, 263, 271, 358in shaken drinks, 84, 91–93, 352–55

texture modification (vacuum technique), 227

Thai basil, 370

in TBD, 172

thermocouple thermometers, 181–82

thermodynamics, 76–79

thermometers, 32–33, 48, 86, 181–82

thermos, 41, 160

Ticaloid 210S, 54, 56

in Any Nut Orgeat, 57in butter syrup, 54, 55

TIC Gums company, 54

Tien Shien fruit forest, 350

timers, for rapid nitrous infusion, 192, 193, 196

tinctures:

defined, 210rapid infused, 214–17

tins, see shaking tins

titratable acid, 58

percentage in cocktail ingredients of, 136–37

tomatoes, 222, 233, 240, 250, 255

tonic water, 362, 373

carbonation levels of, 295composition of, 364in Gin and Tonic, 361, 364–70

Tonic Water Two Ways, 373

turmeric:

gin infused with, 192, 198properties of, 198, 201in Turmeric Gin, 200

Turmeric Gin, 198, 199, 200

in Glo-Sour, 200

20th-Century Cocktail, 132–33

USP (United States Pharmacopeia) grade, 366

UV light, in skunking, 216

vacuum compression, 227

vacuum distillation, 45–46, 46, 359

vacuum infusion, 218–34

choices of fruits and vegetables for, 232–34ingredients for, 222–23releasing the vacuum in, 225–27shelf life in, 222–23sucking time for, 225technical considerations for, 222–27

vacuum machine oil, 224, 224

vacuum machines, see chamber vacuum machines

vacuum pumps, 219, 224, 225

Vacu Vin wine saver, 219

Valrhona cocoa nibs, 208

in Rapid Chocolate Bitters, 213

vanilla extract, 271

venting:

of carbonation pressure, 307, 311of iSi whipper, 193, 196–97, 197, 207, 212, 217

vermouth, 50, 58, 85, 219, 225

in Carbonated Negroni, 325

in frozen drinks, 143ingredient percentages in, 136in Manhattans, 104in Negronis, 103, 104

vermouth cocktail, carbonating of, 306–7

vertical lever-pulled citrus press, 35

Vieux Carré, 130

vitamin C, see ascorbic acid

Vitamix blenders, 35, 49

Vita-prep high-speed blenders, 35–36, 48, 49, 115, 247

vodka, 321, 323

in Apricots Justino, 261in Bottled Caramel Appletini, 346, 347for carbonation, 322in Chocolate Vodka, 208for dry ice chilling, 163in Ebony, 143, 144in Habanero-n-Juice, 331in Ivory, 143, 144in Lemongrass vodka, 203in martinis, 75in Nitrous Espresso, 357in Peanut Butter and Jelly Vodka, 285in Rapid Black Pepper Tincture, 215in Rapid Chocolate Bitters, 213in Rapid Hops Tincture, 216–17in Rapid Orange Bitters, 211in Shaken Drake, 149tea-infused, 263, 268–69, 268

volume:

measurement by, 18, 30, 122, 251use of term, 20

volumes of CO2 (units of measurement), 295, 297

wash line, 18, 19, 362

water:

to alcohol ratio, 323carbonated, 288–89, 308, 311, 312in distillates, 47expansion in ice formation of, 66–67filtration of, 73impurities in, 67–69, 73surface area of, 81–82

taste, 312, 317uses of hot, 69, 70, 73

watermelon juice, 145, 232

watermelon rind, 218, 220–21, 222, 232

weight, measurement by, 30–31, 52, 57, 251, 296, 297

whey:

foaming properties of, 300as texturizer, 93, 204

whipped cream, in iSi whipper, 191, 312, 315

whipper head, 192

whippers:

large capacity, 217see also iSi cream whippers

whippets, 42

whiskey, 85, 183, 260, 265, 271, 321, 326

for carbonation, 322in Pineapples Justino, 261washing of, 344

whiskey sour cocktails, 272

egg whites vs. eggless, 94–95frozen, 145–46

white dog, 278

white rum:

in Blender Daiquiri, 120for carbonation, 322in Frozen Daiquiri, 142in Honeycrisp Rum Shake, 340in TBD, 172

white vinegar, 233

white wines, 61

Wickson crabapple, 344

in Bottled Caramel Appletini, 346, 347

Widow’s Kiss, 130

wine-fining, 236

agents, 246, 247–48, 278booze washing vs., 266steps in, 247

wines, carbonated, 320

wire resistance heater, 181

wormwood, 210

xanthan gum, 54

in Any Nut Orgeat, 57

Xylopia aethiopica tree, 204

Yellow Chartreuse, in Blender Marg, 118

Yellow Transparent Apples, 349

Y-peeler, 29, 48

yuzu juice, 218

Ziplock bags, 141, 143, 144, 230, 231

Zumex automatic juicer, 34

Copyright © 2014 by Dave Arnold

Photographs copyright © 2014 by Travis Huggett

All rights reserved

First Edition

Here: Milk punch recipe by Benjamin Franklin, 11 October 1763. Original manuscript from the Bowdoin and TemplePapers in the Winthrop Family Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society.

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Arnold, Dave, 1971– author.

Liquid intelligence : the art and science of the perfect cocktail /Dave Arnold ; photography by Travis Huggett. — First edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-393-08903-5 (hardcover)

1. Cocktails. 2. Measuring instruments. I. Title.

TX951.A675 2014

641.87'4—dc23

2014022332

ISBN 978-0-393-24585-1 (e-book)

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